#and fun bonus fact? According to the same source

[polaritydisturbed]

With the new episode and the return of the Catkind (yes, that is actually what they’re called), I feel obligated to remind everyone that it is canon—like, actual from-Doctor Who: The Monster Vault-canon—that they only exist because:

A) Humans accidentally left some pet cats on a planet (Tandon), B) A few billion years later those cats evolved into humanoid cat people, and C) When humans eventually stumbled back onto that planet, a woman named Brooke looked at a Cat prince and said “yeah, I could work with that,” had his babies, and that created Catkind.

So basically: humanity lost their cats, forgot they did that, came back eons later, found out the cats had gotten sexy, and "danced".

[katyahina]

Okay so, according to Moonlight Ruin who datamines Dark Souls 2, almost all the summons and invaders use the same preset faces

(Source: ( x )) So I guess I had to put my own take on them.. Donna, Bellclaire and Scarlett are not altered as I felt like at least someone from each list should use this data! I don't include Abyss people since they're just mirrors of characters/enemies, and 'Nameless Usurper' is actually Licia!

(Also have bonus Melinda pre-Gutter I guess)

Some thought process under cut!

I assume Foreigner Wandering Phantom is one of those outsiders that failed to make it from the start like the Hollows we fight in the Thing Betwix, they literally invade there and wear this set.. That's where Hollowing traces come from. There is a NPC preset for Hollwing though that this NPC doesn't use though, so it is not that profound

Dingy Cleric Phantom HAD to have an "interesting" hairstyle, because she is implied to be Anastacia's descendant! She is the only character wearing full Ana's set, not just a piece, and the only way player can get it! Plus this set mentions "original owner" in DS2 and does not reappear in DS3! She deserved "anime character" treatment fdhfhds (And a small lighning scar upon first tries of wielding her every Warrior of Sunlight miracle). Basically Lautrec canonically dies and I will NOT let you forget about it lololololol

Roenna's look is actually @val-of-the-north's fault because when he was doodling DS2 shitposts, he drew Roenna like Chara from Undеrtale fjdjfddffd I at least altered the colors well enough, but the joke stuck and I can NOT unsee it ;-; xD Also, pupils of different sizes are intentional!

With Donna, you also need to design an outfit because HER equipment is frankensteined out of pieces you can't compromise lore with, so I decided to at least give the preset face to her or else it would be 100% OC lol

The phantom that was 99.99% Durgo is actually jossed from SotFS edition and is now just a corpse, but I still use that one for a reference! Fun fact: Japanese script doesn't have pronouns for Durgo, English localisation just opts out for a 'he' in every uncertain situation! Don't let me to stop you from making a twink though fdshgdgfh

Guthry is one of the characters with whom I just could not help almost ignoring the initial NPC preset... I needed someone with curly hair or so help me, also, helmeted character so even more freedom. Skin rash due to her (seemingly) spending too much time with rats lol

Melinda is in the Gutter, so I thought about very harrowing side effects. The twins from Black Gulch would probably do no better. Also, I am thinking that since she can be summoned (in Dragon Temple) only after being killed in the Gutter, her spirit actually sorta jumps in our pocket and sticks out to warn us about fake nature of the "dragon" too x) Pursuer somehow claims the spirits of the Undead that he haunts, so I think with her Bearer of the Curse somehow accidentially did the same, just only once, and she isn't suffering. She is free, actually.

Rachel seems to be one of the soldiers that served Vendrick, judging by her equipment! But those are overall found Hollowed, so I thought that'd apply to her too! She is also in Brume Tower and her helmet is replaced with Alonne Helm now, so I think she left with Raime?

Painting Guardian Phantom was my second potential pick for unaltered face data for this preset, but I decided to give that one to Bellclaire instead! O'Harrah is wearing Monastery Long Shirt as well but is a bit more "removed" from it. The Guardian, on the other hand, drops the full set pieces with each invasion! And the braid is an important detail in their designs, their hoods even imitate it, so I could not help giving her the braid as reference too!

That last preset was the simplest I guess, with only four character and only Scarlett not having a head piece! So, the choice of who gets the unaltered preset is obvious here? I also changed stones coloration for the Pyromancer to make it more individual, but removed them from Butcher Phantom (thought she was not supposed to wear this set from context stanpoint)

[solshii]

Some Jiyan Fun Facts

SPOILERS: Chapter 1 Act V and Act VI, Jiyan's Companion Quest and pretty much everything in Jiyan's profile

I got the source of Jiyan's character stories from his profile in the Wuthering Waves fandom wiki, and his voicelines in game.

- As I mentioned in one of my posts, Jiyan is around 23 years old.

From what Yangyang retold in the beginning of Ch1 Act V, we know that Jiyan became General after the "Battle Beneath the Crescent".

Taoqi explains Battle Beneath the Crescent in the beginning of Act VI as a gruelsome fight that occured 3 years prior to the game's events against TDs that were native to the norfall barrens and produced by Retroact Rain.

In Jiyan's character story 2, "The Reason To Fight", Jiyan was said to have taken the role of General at 20.

In summary, 3 years have passed since the Battle Beneath the Crescent, the event that led to Jiyan becoming the General at 20. Hence, Jiyan is 23 years old during the game's events.

I would like to clarify though that it's not clear how soon after the battle Jiyan became appointed as General, and I'm going under the assumption that he got the position within the same year as the battle. At the very least, he is 20 at the youngest and 24 at the oldest.

- He is the youngest General in the Midnight Ranger's history, as described in his character story 2 : "The Reason to Fight".

This also means that Geshu Lin is older than Jiyan.

- Jiyan joined the Midnight Rangers as a medic around the age of 13.

According to Jiyan's Companion Quest, Jiyan was part of the temporary team that set the record of the Gulpuff Relay 10 years ago. One of the illusions of the audience members from that decade-old relay also describes Jiyan as a "new recruit".

Knowing that Jiyan is around 23 as of the game's events, this means that Jiyan was 13 when he joined the Midnight Rangers.

If I stick with the idea that Jiyan was 20 at youngest by the time of the game's events, this would mean Jiyan joined at the age of 10.

- Jiyan was born into a medical family, becoming his mother's assistant at age 10.

As described in character story 4: "What's inside his gourd?". As a little bonus, he stores common medicine inside his gourd.

- The scales on his left jaw appeared after his forte-awakening/when he got his powers. It seems like that's the only place where the scales are.

As described by Jiyan's Forte Examination Report: Resonance Evaluation Report.

"Post-Awakening observations found some growths that resemble Loong scale on his left jaw. No indications of progressive expansion have been detected."

- Jiyan first got his resonance power in Yuanwang camp in Desorock Highland.

As described by Jiyan's Forte Examination Report: Resonance Evaluation Report.

"Resonator Jiyan's Forte-Awakening was observed at the Yuanwang Camp located in Desorock Highland." It was recognised when Jiyan accumulated air currents to form a lance.

- Jiyan has not yet Overclocked. Apparently his frequency is highly stable, hence his low risk of Overclocking.

Described by Forte Examination Report: Overclock Diagnostic Report.

For those who forgot (bcs me too tbh), Overclocking is just essentially where a resonator's powers are overused, and can cause disasters. Other characters, such as Mortefi and Sanhua, are more prone to Overclocking.

Side Mortefi fun fact: his scale growth increased after Overclocking, meaning that Overclocking can change a resonator's appearance.

I would really love to go more into the lore information about Jiyan's power in the Forte Examination Report but a lot of things in it are unclear right now, though they do look interesting.

- The death of his last patient and friend, a Midnight Ranger named Beiwang, was what finally pushed him to join the battlefield. His spear is fashioned after Beiwang's own.

A summarisation of character story 4: "What's inside his gourd?" and voiceline: "Chat I: This spear was modelled after the weapon of Captain Beiwang."

- Jiyan doesn't like Bittberry, though claims to have grown accustomed to it.

Essentially his mother believed that enduring bitterness meant you will become better, and she always put it in his food. He didn't find it very pleasant but got used to it since supplies are scarce.

As described by voiceline: "Disliked Food"

Side fun fact: I bring this up because you can see that he looks a bit nervous to receive Bittberry tea relative to the other characters in the Bottoms Up! Bittberry Tea Web Event lol

[xirustale]

The Corrupto Family Ask Box

I finally finished this! Meet the Corrupto Family. I labeled their names below if anybody is interested.

Fun fact about this AU, depending on what blood you come from here depicts how many years you can live up to.

For example:

The common humans/monsters can live up to 80-100 years. Since they are just normal pieces of code to the AU and have no further purpose.

However, if an anomaly was to get married to a common human/monster, the offspring would be live twice as long according to the anomalies lifespan.

The hybrid and quarter human/monster anomalies live twice as long as the source material they came from.

Say if their parent or grandparent was full anomaly ith an immortal lifespan, then that means it would apply the same for them. But if one or the other wasn’t immortal and was only able to live up to 10,000 years or higher, then the offspring would live 10 times that amount.

Full human/monster anomalies can live up to at least 100 centuries, depending on what bloodline they come from. That includes glitches, corrupted forms, omni beings etc.

Low class can live up to 4 centuries, middle-class can live up to 7-10 centuries, the high class get a bonus with 100-1000 centuries, and the god class can live up to in between a million years and/or forever.

…..Asking Tips

This get the characters attention you wish to speak to. Note: Not all of the characters are friendly so please use these tips before you ask your question.

The Triple X

Xirus- Say “My emperor.” Nothing more nothing less. He hates mortals, so don’t let him find out. He’s a crazy bastard who’s completely unpredictable.

Xelter- Simply just introduce yourself and explain your intentions. Then he’ll know you do not pose a threat. He has trust issues.

Xiro- You don’t have to do anything specific for him, he’s the friendliest out of his brothers.

The Parents (Dead)

Xaiver- Keep your voice at a low and don’t provoke him. He’s very quiet and soft spoken, however he’s not in the right mindset so keep watch for that.

Charla- You don’t really have to do anything specific for her, however you can offer comfort, because her and her husband could use it.

The Parents (Alive)

Via- Greet her with a friendly attitude and she will gladly give you a basket of muffins as a token for your question.

Queen Corrupto- No tips. Xirus prevented her from speaking unless he gives her permission. So don’t waste your time.

The Kids

Alt Corrupto- Say “Greetings young prince.” He’s a baby so he can’t really answer your question physically.

Banba Corrupto- He’s a silly little guy, as long as you don’t make him angry. So it’ll just be a wholesome interaction.

???-Coming soon, let’s just say it has something to do with Xirus. Hehe =)

The Rose Pink Siblings

Rosé Corrupto- Silent but deadly when he wants to be. Just try not to provoke him. He doesn’t speak much and mostly responds with soft grunts. Though he might be intimidating, he’s very chill.

Xina Corrupto-She often comes off as sassy but she doesn’t mean any harm by it. She is the strongest female in her family and won’t hesitate to give you the hands.

Special Easter Egg Characters

Gaster.EYE-👎︎□︎ ■︎□︎⧫︎ ●︎□︎□︎🙵 ♓︎■︎⧫︎□︎ ♒︎♓︎⬧︎ ♏︎⍓︎♏︎📪︎ ♐︎□︎❒︎ ♓︎⧫︎ ♒︎□︎●︎♎︎ ❍︎♋︎■︎⍓︎ ♎︎♋︎❒︎🙵 ⬧︎♏︎♍︎❒︎♏︎⧫︎⬧︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎’●︎●︎ ■︎♏︎❖︎♏︎❒︎ ♍︎□︎❍︎♏︎ ♌︎♋︎♍︎🙵 ♐︎❒︎□︎❍︎📬︎

Xirus Backup Invert- Secret Code Entry: Type “Secret File” if you spot a folder with a X written on it in the background. Don’t make any mistakes or it won’t work. you might discover something you never knew about Xirus.

Wendy Lulu-She will often be seen in the background spying on you. If you spot her, secretly use the flower emoji and she’ll run away.

Corrupted Chara Doll- If you see it in the background, do not touch it no matter how cute it is. Don’t do anything.

[gayarograce]

OK, I keep seeing people get this wrong, and it really irks me, so I'm making this post:

Kinder Surprise Eggs are banned in the United States. A lot of you probably knew this already, and this fact is indeed true. What is not true is the assumption I see almost everyone then take: that we did it intentionally, i.e. we banned Kinder Surprise after they were invented due to safety concerns. This is then (anecdotally, I admit) usually followed by some claim that either American children are too stupid to keep themselves from choking on the toy inside or that adults are simply too worried about children potentially choking and decided to then ban them. (Bonus points if the person also mentions our lack of gun control or school shootings in the same breath!)

Except, the second part of that claim, that we intentionally banned Kinder Surprise after they came out, is simply false.

The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) of 1938 bans confectionery that "has partially or completely imbedded therein any nonnutritive object" (21 U.S.C. § 342(d)(1)). You will note, as stated above, that the FFDCA was passed in 1938. Kinder Surprise was released by Ferrero in 1974. Kinder Surprise came 36 years after the FFDCA. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that the small toy inside Kinder Surprise Eggs isn't nutritive, and therefore when they were launched, they were already by default banned by the FFDCA.

So no, we don't have some sort of special vendetta out for Kinder Surprise Eggs, they were simply already illegal in the US from the start. There is, however, a country which has specifically targeted Kinder Surprise Eggs since they've released:

Chile, in 2016, banned Kinder Surprise, along with a multitude of other sugary foods in an effort to curb Chile's rapidly growing childhood obesity rate. Their specific issue with Kinder Surprise was that the toy is, as they called it, a "promotional gadget" (source). According to Ley 20606, "La venta de alimentos especialmente destinados a menores no podrá efectuarse mediante ganchos comerciales... como regalos, concursos, juegos u otro elemento de atracción infantil" (Ley 20606, Artículo 6, Párrafo 3, source in Spanish). Or, as a rough translation, "The sale of food specifically intended for children may not be carried out through the means of commercial hooks... such as gifts, contests, games, or other elements intended to attract children."

I'm not really sure how I want to end this post. I guess the main thing to take away is whenever you come across any claims similar to the one I addressed in this post, maybe do some research into why what they're making fun of is the case. (Another example I could talk about is how lots of people just assume someone randomly decided there should be 5,280 feet in a mile through the means of, in the words of one notable Tumblr post, "a drunk mathematician rolling dice." The short answer to this is there's 5,280 feet in a mile for the same reason there's exactly 2.54 centimeters in an inch.)

I think that's about it. End post.

[hummingbee-lievable]

Song of the Day #20:

'Helplessly Hoping' by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (released 1969).

Stand by the stairway

You'll see something

Certain to tell you confusion has its cost

I honestly had a hard time picking lyrics from this song. It's all beautifully topsy-turvy.

Track #2 on 'So Far'.

Fun fact: This fun fact is inspired by a glitch in the YouTube Music app:

This was at the bottom of the lyrics for 'Helplessly Hoping', and I wonder if this was taken from a live recording, and that was then introducing the next song? Who knows.

'Ohio' is an anthem, though. It was written by Neil Young in response to the shooting at Kent State University. There were students protesting a bombing of Cambodia by the American military, authorised by President Nixon in 1970. According to this article: 'The preemptive strike was aimed at forestalling communist North Vietnamese attacks into South Vietnam from their sanctuaries there even as the South Vietnamese were being primed to assume more responsibility for the conduct of the war and U.S. forces were being withdrawn'.* This triggered a massive anti-war response all across the country, one of those movements being at Kent State University, where 4 students were killed by the Ohio National Guard as a means to stop the protesting. Essentially, armed police shooting into a crowd of protestors. The more things change, the more they remain the same, aye?

Here's the song:

On a fun and different note, Neil Young was not only in 'Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young', but he was also in 'Buffalo Springfield' (named for a steamroller that was parked on the street)! (Stephen Stills was also in this band!) They are probably most known now for 'For What It's Worth':

David Crosby was previously in 'The Byrds' (named a misspelled animal as a nod to 'The Beatles' and to avoid the slang of 'birds', another term for 'ladies' or 'girls') before he met the other bandmembers, and wrote a copious amount of delightful songs, including this one:

Annnd last but definitely not least, Graham Nash was part of 'The Hollies' (named in honour of Buddy Holly)! You might recognise this band for 'The Air That I Breathe' or 'Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress', and this is one that Nash wrote for them:

Personal blurb:

I was raised on this album. Recently, I've been on a kick to recover all the albums I listened to in childhood, because they were glimpses of joy.

Today, I am 'helplessly hoping'. I'm not sure what else to say beyond that. I guess I just have to wait and see.

Added bonus:

'Find the Cost of Freedom' from the same album just needs a moment of appreciation. My siblings and I could all sing this song by heart at a moment's notice; I'm not really sure how, but it became somewhat of an anthem for us.

Find the cost of freedom

Buried in the ground

Mother earth will swallow you

Lay your body down

*References:

[leatherbookmark]

i feel so fucking bad for op of that one post and the insane anons/replies they've been getting

"we just don't know! maybe the term fujoshi came to be because men didn't want to marry women who fetishized homosexual relationships" i'm going to throw something against the wall. no it DIDN'T and you fucking know it

"while *maybe* it has a history in japanese feminism or otaku culture, it doesn't in the english-speaking side of the internet, soooooo"

"ok but the word is used to harass trans men and--" AYE and it still doesn't change the fact that western fans took a term that JAPANESE WOMEN were using IN THEIR CONTEXT and gave it a new, COMPLETELY NEGATIVE meaning.

do you understand the problem. do you people understand the fucking problem. especially when japanese artists have been starting to post on tumblr because twt is shitting its pants? do you understand the problem of associating japanese terms with immoral debauchery robbing gay people of their dignity while the english terms are pure, healthy and wholesome? DO YOU UN(ry

"but yaoi IS pornographic and fetishistic" okay and now look me in the eyes and tell me people who foam at the mouth at the mere thought of those nasty disgusting fujos and their gross yaoi genuinely care about what gay men feel or think. or that they've thought about the issue for more than 5 seconds.

because if your problem is "pornographic" -- okay but people fuck. people are horny. people enjoy pornographic materials. surely you're not against that. surely if you don't want r18 materials in your zine/discord server/blog, you can say "no r18 materials please" rather than "no yaoi".

if it's "fetishistic" -- as in? reducing something to an object with the sole purpose of titillating you? good news, fictional characters aren't real, they're not going to be sad. bad news, you could say the same about completely sfw, fluffy coffeeshop aus, because you don't write them to give justice to gay men, you're writing them because you think they're cute and you want to see your otp kiss over a caramel macchiato after weeks of shy smiles and cup sleeve messages. and then possibly boink! gasp! they are also just tools for you to achieve the state of Kicking Your Leggies In The Air OMG I Love Them So Much. but good news, again, they aren't real.

even better news -- the general purpose of yaoi/pwp (yes hi hello we have a 'yaoi' equivalent in english!) isn't to portray actual gay men as accurately as possible. the purpose of it is to be fun for the creators and readers. the solution to the problem of "ugh, the entire romance section in my library is stupid harlequins where the stupid protagonist does nothing but swoon into the arms of her stupid beefy lover" is not to burn it all down and label harlequin readers (ie, your grandma and her neighbour) disgusting hornybrained homophobes, yknow.

bonus:

"yaoi has sex in it while shounen-ai is sfw and fluffy."

sort of.

according to gotdamn wikipedia, "yaoi" are self-pub (fan)works focusing on the sexual content rather than coming up with an interesting, complex story. the pwp fanfic. meanwhile "shounen-ai", as a word existing in the japanese language, literally means "love of young boys", or "pederasty". as jpn wikipedia states, inagaki taruho, a male writer, has been writing on the topic of "love of young boys" since the end of the taisho era, and in '68, he published "the aesthetic of shounen-ai", in which

In Taruho's unique essays on aesthetic eroticism (and erotic aestheticism) A[nus], which is directly connected to O[ral], is regarded as the most important and essential of all erotic organs/sites including V[agina], P[enis] and K[litoris]. He considers A to be the paragon of the comic, primitive, innocent, and beautiful. (source)

the works of inagaki, shibusawa tatsuhiko and mishima yukio were an inspiration for shoujo (largely romantic stories for young girls) manga artists, resulting in the works of takemiya keiko and hagio moto, amongst others, a generation of artists who revolutionized not only the shoujo genre but also manga in general. takemiya published "sunroom ni te" which later became "kaze to ki no uta", and hagio "thomas no shinzou" (the heart of thomas); their shounen-ai wasn't "the chaste equivalent of yaoi", because iirc the yaoi term surfaced a couple of years later, in late 70s/early 80s, while the aforementioned works all began in the 70s (sunroom in the very 1970). instead, it was complex, in both the plot and the psychology of the characters. dramatic, often tragic. it didn't show hole, but it dealt with topics of sex, sexual abuse, abuse, incest, suicide -- because of that, takemiya struggled for years to get their editors to publish it. here it is mentioned that

Early shōnen-ai works were inspired by European literature, the writings of Taruho Inagaki, and the Bildungsroman genre. Shōnen-ai often features references to literature, history, science, and philosophy; Suzuki describes the genre as being "pedantic" and "difficult to understand", with "philosophical and abstract musings" that challenged young readers who were often only able to understand the references and deeper themes as they grew older.

back to the word fujoshi -- after some v light googling i found that the term "fujoshi" with the 腐 was "used with self-depreciation", but because the first noted use of the term online is from a blog of a man (1999年 8月 11日) who's found it on a certain textboard, it's not clear which meaning was first: the derogatory one used by men, or self-depreciating used by the female fans themselves. this article mentions the self-depreciating angle and the fact that it was "obvious to everyone" that there was something "rotten" about fujoshi -- namely, that they were misreading the original works that featured no mentions of homosexuality at all, as well as the feeling of shame at being able to "impose" homosexual feelings upon the characters and sexualizing them.

it has to be said, though, that both this "shame" and the dreaded "tee hee my sinful babies! XD" brought up every time someone tries to tell people fujoshi are not the devil don't necessarily have to be a reflection of severe homophobia of the women, but rather a reflection of the society that punishes women for sexual desires in the first place, whether they feature a man and a woman or two men.

men don't call themselves "nasty freaks" for liking lesbian porn, iirc.

if the society was open and accepting to both homosexuality and female desire, would fujoshi be called fujoshi in the first place? it seems to me that the insistence that fujoshi are called fujoshi because Something's Really Wrong With Them, We Should Condemn! Wholeheartedly Condemn! Examine That is similar to people writhing and whining that queer people are calling themselves queer when queer is a slur and means a bad thing. aye. we live in a one-dimensional world and the sun is a quarter of a circle with sunglasses in the top left corner of the page.

and YES, there are men -- even japanese men! even japanese gay men! gasp! -- who criticize the popularity of yaoi/BL for the "i'm not gay, just in love with this one guy" trope, ignoring the matter of homophobia in society or making the uke too "stereotypically feminine" (ie, a meek, sweet, submissive little thing who's a master at cooking, gently taking care of his man and squeaking when said man plows him on the table). and these are valid criticisms! but you don't have to have a master's degree to know that this happens in heterosexual romances as well. furthermore, i have to leave in a second so i won't expand on this, but as i'm sure many people have heard/read, making Romance Works Featuring Two Guys gives women tools to examine femininity, the role of women in society and their position in relationships with men. just read this thing, it's neat.

tl;dr westerners please stop confidently acting like being tumblr/twitter antis gives you the right to debate and decide on the meaning and usage of foreign words, FUJOSHI DOES NOT, AND NEVER DID, HAVE THE MEANING OF "BAD WOMAN FETISHIZING M/M RELATIONSHIP AS OPPOSED TO APPROACHING THEM WITH RESPECT AND KINDNESS"

biting and mauling and exploding with my mind people who argue about the semantics of fujoshi/yaoi/BL/etc while possessing little more than your average anti circa about 2015's level of knowledge of the terms

[wonlouvre]

pairing: doctor!wonwoo x lawyer!female oc genre: modern royalty, arranged marriage, fluff and future angst word count: 1,787 warnings: mentions of food, skipping a meal, fainting

author’s note: part 2 is here and i am excited! i received the support that some of you have given by liking and reblogging and i appreciate it so much! please do share some of your thoughts. i’d love to hear from you. for some reference on what our Prince Wonwoo wore on this chapter during the first few bits: here. 

two: what could have been | masterlist

“What?”

One of these days you’re going to start blaming Wonwoo for the unusual accidents that happen whenever he is around or whenever his name is brought up. It’s a relief that you didn’t trip, again, because you were more than sure that making an abrupt stop while wearing heels can lead to several painful possibilities. 

“You okay?” Jeongyeon was quick to hold on to your arm, helping you find your balance again. She’s definitely not risking anymore injuries especially now that there’s no Doctor Jeon around. 

“What did you just say?” You repeat as you try to compose yourself and start walking across the hallway like how you were supposed to in the first place. 

Jeongyeon blinks at you for a few seconds before gasping, “Oh, right! According to my sources, apparently the long term girlfriend was actually the one for Prince Wonwoo,” she says casually as if she’s just dropping the weather report for the day. “He had plans to propose.”

Propose?

“By sources you mean?” You ask. The lawyer in you is making sure that this is nothing but a baseless rumor and also the rational person in you is making sure your head doesn't get clouded by jealousy.

Me? Jealous? Your left eye twitches at the thought.

“Dr. Kwon also known as Hoshi,” she answers like they have been friends for ten years. “He’s the Prince’s friend from primary school up to medical school.”

“How do you even know this Dr. Kwon?” You ask while narrowing your eyes at her. You are nowhere near done verifying her sources.

Jeongyeon sheepishly smiles before giggling nervously. “Well…”

You sigh. Jeongyeon can be brilliant but she could go overboard at times. “Don’t tell me he works at the same hospital as Wonwoo and you yourself went there?”

“I had to!” She defends, stomping her feet. “You told me to go look up some info and I did. I just wanted to do a good job while I was at it.”

You close your eyes in defeat before pulling her close to whisper a reminder to her ear, “Next time, let’s tone down the enthusiasm, alright?”

She just grins. “No promises.”

Were you threatened by the recent information your assistant just shared to you?

No, of course not.

Were you bothered?

Yes. Absolutely. One hundred percent. 

You’re bothered because you can’t help but think about what could have been.

What could have been for Wonwoo and this mystery girl. You suddenly feel terrible. All this time you were okay with this arrangement. In fact, you were beyond okay already. But, how about Wonwoo? Sure, maybe you thought he could be against this marriage. But, it didn’t cross your mind what he could have left behind back home. What he had to give up and what he had to let go.

“Hey.”

All your thoughts and worries flushed down the drain in an instant at the sound of the voice you’re starting to grow fond of.

Wonwoo arrived like a breath of fresh air with his light blue button down and jeans. The glasses are a bonus that you are lucky to see for the first time. You weren’t aware that he wore them. In fact, you have never seen him wear casual clothes until today. If you were frowning earlier, you are blushing now because of how good he looks. 

“Sorry I’m late,” he sincerely apologizes as he walks towards you. “I’m not gonna lie. I overslept.”

Come to think of it, you have been standing outside this terrace for quite a while now. Thinking too much can be a good distraction to the point that you won’t even notice that you have been waiting.

You cleared the rest of the afternoon to sneak in some wedding planning. Meanwhile, Wonwoo decided to take the night shift yesterday and take today off to join you. 

You shake your head and give him a small smile in understanding. “It’s okay. I just arrived too.”

That was a lie, but it doesn’t matter. Especially now, in spite of getting the right amount of sleep, you can tell that he is still tired and sleepy. And, adorable. But you would never let him know that.

“It didn’t look like it though,” he counters, making your brows raise. “You looked like you were already here for a while. A penny for your thoughts?”

Your eyes roll at his teasing tone while he just smirks. 

But then, you figured since he already asked, this could be the right time. “Can I ask you something?”

Wonwoo crosses his arms, pretending to contemplate your request. “It depends. Am I in trouble?”

“No,” you deadpan. “You don’t have to answer though. That’s what I can guarantee.”

“Fine by me.” He relaxes his arms to his sides and stands close to the railing you were leaning your body weight against. 

Well, okay.  Your palms suddenly started to sweat. Maybe it’s a bad idea to pry about his past. What’s the point of bringing it up? What do you need out of this anyway? Why the bother? 

Yeah, let’s just not, you decided to drop it but Wonwoo already beat you to it.

“Let me guess,” the Prince noticed your silence and decided to take the matters in his hands. “Is it about my ex-girlfriend?”

Heat immediately rose to your cheeks, embarrassed by how could you let it get this far. “I’m sorry. Nevermind. Let’s just go inside. They’re probably ready for us.” 

You were fast to lift your feet from the ground and honestly,  if you could, you’d run away and never return. But, Wonwoo was faster. He was faster to grasp your hand and make you stop from taking another step in a heartbeat. 

You’re not one to let your head hang low and avoid eye contact, but here you are doing everything in your power to not meet Wonwoo’s eyes. You’re also not one to grow flustered easily. You always know what and how to make the last say.

But again, here you are tight-lipped and wishing to be buried underground. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he promises while tilting his head to the side, searching for your eyes. “I’m not making fun of you and I understand that it’s inevitable for this to be not brought up.”

You relent by nodding and finally turning your body to face him. “Okay.”

Wonwoo smiles and caresses the top of your head. “This is not something you should be worrying about.”

His brazen touch made you feel small yet comforted. 

“Do you really want to marry me Wonwoo?” You whisper between the two of you. 

He blinks then furrows his brows. “What kind of question is that?”

You frown, you’re supposed to give me an answer. “I just thought that maybe it’s better to call it off already before we regret anything in the future.”

“Y/N,” he calls for your name for the first time. “My past relationship is already in the past. I am not dwelling from what happened and what could have been. I am here now and that’s all that matters.”

“Don’t play smart with me,” you scoff and pull yourself away from him.

But Wonwoo just laughs and tightens his hold. He now holds both of your hands and strangely enough, having his hands entwined with yours is nice.

“Why? Does the princess don’t want to marry me?” 

“I don’t actually have much of a choice, do I?” 

Now it’s Wonwoo’s turn to scoff. “Who’s playing smart now?”

You burst into a fit of giggles and Wonwoo does the same. 

It’s kind of scary to feel this way. Feeling so reassured and secured with your relationship with Wonwoo like it was the two of you from the get go. It seems so easy. You are at ease and it terrifies you. 

It’s time for work, you slap yourself back to reality. You can’t continue thinking about Wonwoo especially now when you have matters to take care of and clients to satisfy. You sigh and pick up your coffee mug to sip some only to see that it’s already empty.

You quickly reach for your telephone to request for a refill.

“Coffee? Again?” Jeongyeon reprimands before you could even speak. “Your Highness, this is your third cup and it’s only nine o’clock in the morning.”

You ignore her exasperated tone. “I know.”

“How about some bread instead? You’ve had enough caffeine to last the week.”

“Please just bring me one more,” you plead while resting your palm on your forehead, feeling a headache coming up that could actually last the week. “I promise that would be my last cup.”

You can hear Jeongyeon sigh in defeat before muttering a soft okay.

You should have chosen the bread instead of the third cup of coffee because not less than 15 minutes after drinking it, your stomach feels like it’s burning inside by how painful it is. You thought a glass of water can help minimize or dwindle down the pain but it’s of no help.

What’s worse is you suddenly feel hot in spite of the air condition inside your office being on full blast. Your hand brushes against your face and it is wet. Why am I sweating? You quietly groan as another pang of pain hits you. You think you might vomit. 

Maybe you should go to the restroom or whatever. For now, you just want to move in the hopes that this uncomfortable and sickening feeling would go away. You push yourself up from your chair with a lot of effort because your body doesn’t seem to have any more intention to cooperate with your mind.

You decided you’d rest at your apartment for a while and just go back in the afternoon on the assumption that you’d be fine by then.

Slowly and painfully, you walk to the huge doors of your office and with every step you take, you’re catching your breath. You reach the door and clutch the knob tightly, desperate to grab some painkillers and just sleep this off. 

However, before you could twist the knob and take further steps, you were falling to the ground. Your body doesn’t want to act on your decisions anymore and the pain on your stomach is just way too unbearable, you can’t even stand straight. 

And just on time, Jeongyeon opens your door and enters, chirpy as usual, “Your Highness, you have a visi--- Your Highness!”

You were not sure if your eyes could still register what you saw before you blacked out. But, you were positive that you saw the one and only Prince Wonwoo, one moment smiling and the next rushing towards your limp body on the cold tiled floor.

[sciencesideresponse]

why is there a myth that bees shouldn't be able to fly???

Great question! For those who don’t know there’s a “fact” that it is impossible for a bee to fly according to the known laws of thermodynamics. While that might be true if you used the same equations we use for planes, it is very clearly false. Bees can fly. What’s happening here is if you used a plane aerodynamic equation, you would be assuming that, like a plane, a bee has a fixed wing that doesn’t move. However, bees move their wings in a long thin oval shape horizontal to their bodies, backwards and forwards, and they move up and down incredibly fast while doing so.

Bonus fun fact: When a bee that lives in a hive finds a good source of food, they point it out to the other bees by moving in an infinity or number 8 motion while waggling their stingers in the direction of the food.

[the-blind-assassin-12]

Resol’nare - Part One

A/N: You guys, you have no idea how nervous I am to share this story. (My palms are sweating as I type this. You didn’t need to know that but hey, now you do.) Anyway, I have a lot of thoughts about Space Dad and his little green son and so here we are. Please feel free to weigh in with thoughts or questions, and if you would like to be added to the tags, let me know! I hope you enjoy this story, so far it is really fun- albeit scary- for me to write.  

*this story will regularly be using words in Mando’a. for a good list of references click here.*

Summary: What has the Mand’alor been up to since saying goodbye to the kid? And what is he planning to do next? 

Word Count: 4k

Warning: violence

Trask. 

The landing had gone much more smoothly than the last time he’d visited the estuary moon, the ship’s gear easily touching down on one of the stilted platforms instead of plunging into the brackish water beneath it. His new ship, the Promise, though purchased second hand, was in much better shape than the Razor Crest had been when he’d made the manual splashdown. It was faster and more recently modified, all systems intact and the entire ship meticulously serviced by Peli’s droids not two weeks ago. The Promise was a superior ship in every measurable way. But it wasn’t home yet, not the same way that the Razor Crest was. He had to stop himself from glancing back over his right shoulder as he finished flipping switches to shut down the engines. It wouldn’t be home until that seat was occupied again, and there was no telling when that might be.  

He closed his eyes, feeling a sudden tug in the center of his chest. Don’t. The Mandalorian shook thoughts of large round eyes and a small, three-fingered hand from his mind, forcing himself to focus on his current mission. The engines whirred to a stop as he stood, exiting the cockpit without dropping his eyes to the vacant chair. With the press of a button the door slid shut behind him, and he headed down the steel ladder into the gunship’s main hull. 

The sound of his bootsoles making contact with the metallic floor of the modified single-pilot Auzituck echoed through the cavernous space. Passing the door that led to his bunk, he pressed another button before entering a series of coded digits into a keypad. The wall panel next to his rarely used sleeping quarters opened to reveal a weapons locker, the contents of which were still severely lacking. He’d done what he could to replenish his stock of blasters and rifles, but his current collection was nothing compared to the armory he lost when the Razor Crest was destroyed. It won’t matter for this one. He reached in, grabbing a small blaster and the beskar spear he’d left Calodan with, choosing to forgo adding any grenades or extra ammunition to his bandolier. 

Dropping his chin, he let his eyes fall to the silver, cylindrical hilt of the Darksaber where it hung on its pegs. He hadn’t wielded it since he’d won it from Moff Gideon. He reached tentatively for it, but paused just before his fingers closed around the grip. Frowning behind the visor of his helmet, he pulled his hand away, leaving the sword where it was. The weapon- and more so what it symbolized- still made him uncomfortable. Mand’alor. He knew that the right to rule was meant to be an honor, a privilege and a duty that many Mandalorians would take up gladly. But all he saw when he looked at it was the disappointed defeat in Bo-Katan’s eyes when he returned with Gideon in binders and the Darksaber in his hand. He saw that defeat turn sour as she turned down his offer of the blade to her. When he looked at the weapon that he was meant to rule Mandalore with, he only felt unease and unbalance. He tore his eyes from it before he could think about the glowing obsidian blade and how it looked extended menacingly over Grogu’s head. I don’t need it for this. Shutting the weapons locker, he entered the same code that he used to open it, the lock engaging with a loud click. And it’s safer here. 

Armed with likely more than he’d need for the mission he was currently on, he turned for the door and lowered the ramp to disembark. He’d been traveling through the Outer Rim Territories, following a trail of beskar through the black market. His last stop on Mon Cala had garnered him several heavy ingots of the dark metal, as well as some stolen pieces of Mandalorian forged armor that a Quarren called Barlag was trying to move for absurd prices. And he would have gotten them, too. The Mandalorian knew that those who could afford it wouldn’t blink before forking over any number of credits to have their hands on the most indestructible, rare and valuable material in the galaxy. But it wasn’t a commodity, and it didn’t belong in the hands of back alley criminals or imperial holdouts. It belongs with me. With my people. It filled him with a quiet rage that helped to fill the hole that the empty seat in the cockpit left, helped to make him forget about the questions he had surrounding the Darksaber and his title as Mand’alor. 

Tossing a satchel of Calamari Flan to the waiting dockhand to cover the cost of refueling his ship, he strapped the spear to his back and made his way through the port. The streets were full of merchants and traders. Some were legitimate purveyors and transporters of goods, though most operated illegally, at least in part. Trask’s location, far from the Core Worlds, and its relatively small population, meant that it flew so far under the New Republic’s radar that the black market trade was able to flourish almost completely uninhibited. Typically, though, any riff raff rounded up on Trask was collected by bounty hunters hired to track down thieves and debtors, not by the New Republic’s marshals. The Guild often sent its newer, less experienced members on jobs that would bring them there, as the targets were usually low risk. They were considered easy money, though not enough to peak the interest of the higher ranked hunters, so it had been almost a decade since the Mandalorian had been to Trask on Guild business. Keeping his eyes forward, he passed the inn where he’d gotten the information that had led him to Bo-Katan and the others, turning down a narrow alley. He found the entrance to the bar just where Barlag, after some light convincing, had told him it would be. 

The first half of the information on the stolen beskar proving true, he walked through the tattered green curtain that covered the doorway to see about the second half. According to his source, a smuggling ring led by a Quarren named Tirzeg was set to transport a large quantity of beskar shortly after nightfall, and word was that he was using the bar’s basement storage room to hold his contraband until it was time to meet up with his transport team. 

Barlag, who had given up a small stash of beskar ingots and three vambraces in varying states of disrepair after one of his cronies had fallen to the Mandalorian and two others had run off, had been all too willing to cooperate once he felt the spear’s sharp tip against his throat. So willing, in fact, that he’d even given up the location of the much larger smuggling ring on Trask. The Mandalorian knew that that bonus was likely two sided and that the second he released him Barlag was likely to report back to Tirzeg, warning him of what was coming his way. As long as I get there before he takes off. He was more than confident that he’d have no trouble securing the beskar, and when he touched down on Trask with several hours to spare before nightfall he knew that it would only come down to one thing: Would Tirzeg be as cooperative as Barlag had been and give up the beskar, or would it need to be taken from him? 

A cursory scan of the dimly lit room was all it took for him to mark his target. Almost all of the square wooden tables and circular booths were full, but hunting and tracking were second nature to him whether he had a fob or not. All of his years with the Guild had taught him  what cues and tells to look for. He could identify smugglers in his sleep. Back left table.Sidestepping around a man locked in drunken conversation with two Mon Calamari dockhands, he matched Barlag’s description with the tall yellow-beige skinned Quarren positioned with his back to the wall and the two largest of his crew on either side of him like bodyguards. There were six total, by his count, nothing he couldn’t handle. Engaging the thermal scanner on his helmet’s visor, he followed a set of footsteps from the booth that led to a door tucked in the corner of the room. That must be where they’re keeping it. Each table that he passed grew quiet, the patrons looking up at him timidly, hoping it wasn’t them that he had come for. He was sure that at least three of them had bounties out on their heads. But there was only one that he was interested in. 

“Tirzeg,” he called the name when he was a few steps away, drawing the eyes of the rest of the table’s occupants, the short one at the end of the booth closest to where the Mandalorian stood getting to his feet with a snarl. Ignoring the display of aggression, he didn’t break his stride and continued over to the booth. 

“So.” The Quarren didn’t stand as he spoke, simply glanced up over the top of the cards in his hand as the Mandalorian came to a stop in front of his booth. “You must be the Mando that Barlag warned me about.” That’s right. One long facial tentacle rose upwards to pluck a card from the fan of them that he held in front of his face, reshuffling it and gesturing casually with his free hand. The short, snarling goon sat back down and Tirzeg thought about his play for a few more seconds before laying a pair of cards boasting matching red symbols on top of the pile. That done, he finally deemed the conversation at hand worthy of setting his remaining cards face down beside the large stack of coins, folding his arms over the top of his cache.  

“If you heard I was coming,” he tilted his head, arms still hanging loosely at his sides. “Then you know why I’m here.” He spoke in an even, non-threatening tone despite the way that Tirzeg’s crew were clutching the grips and hilts of their weapons. Let them try it.

The Quarren just grinned, the two tentacles closest to his lips curling inwards. “I’ll take a guess. You’re here for the beskar.” He laughed then, the sound more of a gutteral choking sound than anything denoting actual joy, the rest of his men joining in.

“I am,” the Mandalorian answered. And I’m going to be leaving with it.

“And I suppose you think I should just, what?” Tirzeg leaned over his arms, the squid-like appendages of his chin knocking over a small stack of Imperial Credit coins and sending them sliding towards the cards in the middle of the table. “Give it to you? Out of the kindness of my heart?” 

Another round of raucous laughter rose from the table, but the Mandalorian remained calm, giving a shrug as Tirzeg took a long swig from his drink. “The beskar belongs with the Mandalorians, it is my right to reclaim it. Your kindness has nothing to do with it.” 

Tirzeg stood abruptly, hands flat on the table. “Is that so?” It is. His eyes narrowed causing the wrinkled bags beneath them to gather. “And I suppose you also think that it’s going to be as easy to shake me down as it was with Barlag.” He leaned closer, the rest of the oafish brutes that were seated in his booth starting to get to their feet too. “That right, Mando?” 

“I was hoping that you would have more sense than your friend.” He could feel the floorboards shift beneath his boots as two more of Tirzeg’s goons stepped up behind him. The rest of the bar had fallen silent, the patrons quickly picking up on the tension brewing between the Mandalorian and the Quarren and either heading for the exits or else watching closely and cautiously. 

“Friend,” Tirzeg spat the word, several of his men scowling as he did. “That coward is no friend of mine.” The others all grunted in agreement, one banging the long handle of his spear into the floor for emphasis. Tirzeg sat down then, reclining into the backrest and crossing his arms over his chest. “But you know what is mine?” His eyes widened, that greedy grin pulling at his mouth again. “All that shiny beskar.” 

Behind the visor that hid his face the Mandalorian’s brown eyes flashed. Enough. “You can either give it to me, or I will take it from you.” Now it was a threat, one he fully intended to carry out, but he had still not reached for his own weapon.   

“Oh, I’m not gonna give it to you. I’m gonna sell it to a smith. And it’s gonna make me a shiny fortune.” 

He sighed. “Wrong choice.” 

Before any of Tirzeg’s men could strike, the Mandalorian reached for the blaster at his belt, the dusty overhead light reflecting off of his armor in a blinding flash. The zap of the shot was enough encouragement for the rest of the patrons of the bar to scramble over one another for the exits, emptying the room as the being he shot dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. 

“Stop him!” Tirzeg howled, slamming the table and sending cards, coins and glassware flying. Two more of his accomplices launched themselves into the fray. 

The Mandalorian ducked the wild swing of the Quraren in front of him, the blow landing on the jaw of the attacker behind him. Grabbing and pulling at the striker’s ankle, he stood to upend the attacker dropping him hard onto his head. Two down. Blaster still in hand from the first shot, he spun to take out the Quarren who had caught the punch meant for him. But he was blocked, his enemy reaching with one hand to push his blaster out of range, the other jabbing a short spear in his direction. 

Dodging it with ease, the Mandalorian pulled the spear off of his own back to counter the attack in a clanging clash of steel. Re-holstering his blaster once his adversary had released it, he gripped the beskar spear with both hands and drove the Quarren back into the wall, pressing the staff to the being’s throat. Without looking away from his current opponent, he brought one knee up and drove it back behind himself to plant the sole of his boot squarely in the chest of the fourth attacker, driving him through a neighboring table in a splintering crash of wood and limbs.. 

Tirzeg continued howling for his crew to fight back, but by the time the Mandalorian had let go of the goon he had pinned against the bricks, there was just one Quarren left standing next to the lead smuggler. Eyes wide and hands and tentacles quivering nervously, he swallowed and blinked at Tirzeg as the Mandalorian wheeled on the last two still on their feet. “Get him!” Tirzag spat at his last hold out, gesturing wildly as his tentacles splayed out in anger. 

The Mandalorian took another step, spear still extended, but just as he went to lunge the last of Tirzeg’s goon’s thought better of the situation, dropping his weapon and taking off for the exit. “No! Come back here! Come-” 

But despite Tirzeg’s calls, he was left alone, the sharp edge of the spear looming ever closer to his throat as the Mandalorian’s free hand closed around the Quarren’s bicep to keep him from slinking away. Just like Barlag. “The beskar,” the modulator in his helmet did little to cover the small growl in his voice. “Hand it over.” 

Suddenly far less sure of himself and infinitely less brave, Tirzeg sputtered, shrinking away from the blade. “A-alright, I… you…” He pointed one shaking hand at the door that the Mandalorian had correctly guessed was the entrance to the basement storage room. “You can take it just...just let me-” 

Not waiting for the end of the plea, he dropped Tirzeg roughly back into the booth and stepped over the legs of one of the fallen smugglers. “Should have done things my way, would have been-.”  

“Fool.” The overconfident tone crept back into the Quarren’s voice and the Mandalorian froze as Tirzeg grabbed a discarded blaster from the heap of his men and pointed it straight at his back. “All you did was bolster my share of the profit.” He scoffed, surveying the injured and otherwise incapacitated remnants of his crew. “So, I guess, in a way, I should be thanking you, Mand-” 

With a sigh, he simultaneously spun and drew his blaster, pulling the trigger to drop Tirzeg before he could finish his sentence. Whipping the pistol back into place on his belt and stowing the spear on his back once more, he turned his head so that his chin was parallel to his shoulder. “Should have done things my way. Would have been faster.” The energetic hum of the blaster’s single shot dissipated into the silent, dusty air of the vacant room as he descended the basement stairs. 

It had been a good haul, no matter how thinking about it in that manner made him feel. Securing roughly three times the amount of pure beskar that he’d earned for the bounty on Grogu, he tried only to think of how greatly it would benefit his people. This is the Way. He tried not to think about the origin of that metal, and how it had been stripped from it’s former wearer’s bodies. Carrying three full camtonos of heavy Mandalorian steel through the crowded streets of Trask’s darkened port, he reminded himself of his mission. 

The Armorer, along with a small handful of others and the Tribe’s few foundlings had survived what happened on Nevarro, and had reformed the Covert on Tatooine. Though he had yet to personally deliver the besker that he tracked down and reclaimed to The Armorer since he’d removed his helmet, instead passing it off to another Mandalorian, he was dedicated to getting it back into the hands of his people. He was dedicated to protecting them, defending and preserving their way of life, his way of life, and that meant getting them what they needed to keep themselves safe. The men and women who gave their lives so that he could escape with Grogu- a foundling in his and therefore their protection- did so for a reason. And even if he’d broken one of the most integral rules of the Creed, he would never turn his back on those that refused to turn theirs on him. Even if what he’d done meant- 

Dar’manda. 

The word entered his mind and stopped him in his tracks. No. Taking a breath, he kept walking, pushing the desolate, dishonorable connotations that came with that word and its actions from his thoughts. Even if that’s… it’s not what I… He had no way to know what the others thought of him, or if they even knew that he had shown his face not once but twice in the presence of another living creature. All he knew was that while he harbored no regrets over anything  that he’d done for Grogu, and despite how much time had passed, he still wasn’t sure what to do with his beliefs. What was he now? Still one of the Tribe? Or- 

Mand’alor.

There was that word again. The one that carried responsibilities and expectations that he didn’t even know existed let alone that he wanted hefted on his shoulders. I can’t be both. Leader? Unifier? How could he be those things for his people if he didn’t even know if he had a place within their ranks anymore? 

He tightened his grip on the two handles of the camtonos he carried, the third one strapped to his back, and forced himself to focus only on putting one foot in front of the other. He listened only to the sound of his footsteps making contact with the wet ground, concentrated on the physical weight of the beskar in his possession and not on the things he didn’t know how to control. Deliver it to Tatooine, put it in the right hands. Regroup, regather supplies, and look for his next lead. It wasn’t much, and it did little to help him answer the questions he was wrestling with, but it did buy him time away.

While time was in no short supply, seeming to fly by in large chunks some days, he knew one thing that was running thin; Bo-Katan’s patience. The Darksaber beyond her grasp, the only goal she was focused on now was retaking Mandalore by any means necessary. But taking back thier planet would mean he would need to step fully into his role as the leader of the Mandalorian people. How can I lead them if I don’t even know where I stand? 

He sighed as his ship came into view in the port, realizing that he’d have to find a way to answer himself sooner rather than later. Tirzeg’s ring on Trask had been his last real lead on stolen beskar, so he knew that when he arrived back in Tatooine, it would be only a day or two before Bo-Katan and Koska returned from their mission as well, wanting to speak with him. Their task had been traveling the galaxy in search of other Mandalorians, hoping to rally them to fight for their rightful home and spreading the word that they were no longer lost or forgotten- that they had a Manda’lor to follow and a duty to fight. They’d made contact with  two small coverts within the mid rim, as well with a few lone wanderers, but  just like his leads on beskar, their information on where to find more of their kind was drying up quickly. He knew that soon he’d have no choice but to start planning the reclamation of Mandalore. 

Reaching the Promise, he left his thoughts on land. He had paid for a full night at the dock, but as soon as he crossed the threshold he knew he wouldn’t be staying. I need to keep moving. I should… I should get back. Setting one of the heavy cases down, he pressed the button to raise the door behind him. The yellow glow from the lamps in the port reflected off of the murky water to shine into the dark hull, and he watched the sliver of light shrink into nothing as the door sealed shut and he picked the container back up. 

The visor of his helmet automatically adjusted to the low light, and he crossed the space with three echoing steps. Next to the weapons locker was another small storage compartment that he opened, stowing the beskar inside. Disarming himself next, he hung the spear and blaster back in their places, closing the locker without even glancing at the Darksaber’s hilt. But even without paying it any extra attention, thoughts of the sword's crackling black blade crept in, and he wondered if it would ever feel right in his grip. No other weapon had ever given him such pause, and yet it was the one he was supposed to forge a fractured kingdom with. But how?  

As soon as he asked the question he chased it away. Not tonight. With a small shake of his head, he closed the locker and left the dim hull. Climbing into the cockpit, he kept his eyes straight ahead so that they wouldn’t fall to the empty seat behind him, and began punching in the coordinates for Tatooine. Lights blinked on all around him as the engines began to whir and hum, and he cleared the Promise for takeoff, leaving Trask and heading for the stars and the solace that they provided him. 

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tags: @something-tofightfor​ @alraedesigns​ @pheedraws​ @valkblue​ @malionnes​ @gollyderek​

[itscinnafox]

STORY NOTES [akafuri] : By The Next Sunrise

Because I had sooooo much fun doing this with a friend (@miss-cactus) :] (also being the first collab' work that's posted) and had a lot of messy notes and drafts, it's just so precious to me not to ramble about it >w< also plenty of fun times in just 2 and half months despite life biting my ass at the same time, totally my stress relief lol. Also, this story really isn't just some cheesy stuff for the sake of romance. It's genuine love (੭ ˃̣̣̥ ω˂̣̣̥)੭ु⁾⁾

Read the story here in AO3 Summary: On the way to his brother’s house, the spring showers had begun again. With an open palm, he let it collect the cold showers and let it flow out from the cups of his palm. They were chilly despite the warming sun, he looked up at the sky, and wondered what the rain would be like in other parts of the world. Furihata smiled. He would find out. Perhaps by one of the next sunrises.

.☆ﾟ.☆ﾟ.☆ﾟ.☆ﾟ.☆ﾟ.☆ﾟ. Rambles undercut ଘ(੭ˊ꒳ˋ)੭✧ .☆ﾟ.☆ﾟ.☆ﾟ.☆ﾟ.☆ﾟ.☆ﾟ.

FIRSTLY, @miss-cactus has all my gratitude ♡(ŐωŐ人) without her; AkaFuri will be stranded in France LOL! Seriously, I'll just dump them in some random village in France and just maybe not even finish this story at all even. The time she took to find me a place, translate, edits and also judging me for my description of the place LOL yep... total life saver. With her help it really motivated and inspired me a lot! She's the oil to my car............. you get the idea :] .

BONUS, she's also a translator and translated many amazing works, basically a deity, breathing life back into them. Also, she has original works too :D check 'em out, it's cute! It's in French, but they're easily translated, she's that good! (๑>◡<๑) her AO3

WEIRD FACT, I also had a short break up with my boyfriend of 7 years while writing this. LOL. I was so upset but I got motivated by the similarities, that when he asked for us back I was like 'But-but the similarities though!' but I love him....bleeegh. So I said yes, and we're better than before. YAY!

๑ Story Base ๑ The idea popped when I was listening to 'The sun after washed by spring rain' by Wang Lee Hom on a rainy day on my day off, and florist Akashi just looks so beautiful lol and the rest just came up.... and I really wanted this vibe for AkaFuri something incredibly soft and warm~ just cozy >w< huehue~

This story sets in Spring, spring here, spring there~ Spring is the breath of new life, basically Furi's story lol.

I was also aiming for this story to be short and a bit poetic...... LOL then 11k words later I just gave up and was like: well, if AkaFuri wanna romance then who are we to say no? (Akashi will shave my hair in my sleep lol)

๑ Playlist ๑ Play on Youtube The playlist is by order according to each part within the story. I really love to ramble about this since music is my inspiration for a lot of things and the vibe of the whole premise, section of their development and perspectives.

☆ 11 : 11 by Taeyeon Introducing Furihata's little sob lol and Furi's perspective. After Furihata breaks up with his girlfriend (who again, have no significant in his life what so ever), he goes through the phase on moving forward. It really isn't him moving forward with his feelings for her though, it's just him moving forward from the familiarity of being with her in his life. With her gone, he finally reconnects with who he is, like in this passage : "However, somehow with just a fling of his bag onto the island top threw him years back. He has not always been this tidy and clean." Furihata had basically lived his life to accommodate to those around him. (I wanna stress that Furi wasn't forced into a relationship or was it abusive. It was just a relationship with someone whom Furi had no infatuation for. It just so happens she wanted to date him after the wintercup, and Furi is just like 'yea ok?' but really he didn't exactly thought it through.)

So this is where Furihata moves on from the familiarity. He cries because they dated lol, but really he's just confuse.

☆ The Sun After Washed By Spring Rain by Wang Lee Hom Exactly one year after Furi's break-up. The source of this story idea lol. Also, Furi's perspective. The title and the song is literally what it meant; the sun after the spring rain which brings in new beginnings. I present you, this passage of the story: "Instead, with an open palm, he let it collect the cold showers and let it flow out from the cups of his palm. They were chilly despite the warming sun, he looked up at the sky, and wondered what the rain would be like in other parts of the world."

☆ Reunite by Jordie Power I present you, when Akashi appeared and Furihata's crush on Akashi just awakened and go haywire LOL! In this AU, Furihata has genuine feelings for Akashi. They were long time friends, and there were even a few emphasis of their friendship through high school but because Furihata has a girlfriend and Akashi respected that (although most times, in my brain, is just Akashi crying to Kuroko LOL!)

☆ Passage by Miyano Mamoru Furihata and Akashi's similarities. The song is basically about finding yourself as you age, the experiences you go through as you age (i'm 27 and i'm still confuse lol) Even though this story focuses on Furihata a lot and little less on Akashi except for little hints here and there, Akashi was just as lost as Furihata.

Random thought (as I type this), my boyfriend had told me this before "Even though we don't need each other, and do well on our own. We have friends but it's so different. Is just something different to have someone you love around, so to an extend, I really do need you and to share everything with you, it really makes me happy." it really is something different to have someone by your side especially when you found someone. (p/s: you definitely don't need to be in a relationship to feel complete. you complete yourself okay? :3) Furi and Akashi have been in-love since high-school, they have accomplished a lot on their own but in a passage, they both felt lost and felt like something was 'empty' that was because they were still in-love, and they met each other and truly want to spend their life together and share everything.

☆ Moonlight by Miyano Mamoru Mmmmmm~ the juice. This is Akashi's perspective when he wants to romance Furihata (∗ᵕ̴᷄◡ᵕ̴᷅∗)՞ and of course, sneakily confesses to him. OH MY GOODNESS! THIS IS LITERALLY THE PART THAT I'VE BEEN DYING FOR! and wrote it sooooo many times. I wanted it steamy and a little desperate after their long pent-up-frustration unprofessed love, without making it 'explicit' kind of way. So I hope I captured it right lolol.

☆ Make Me Love You by Taeyeon Furihata's feelings towards Akashi. I was pondering on a song that would fit Furihata's pull towards Akashi and how Akashi makes him feel every time. No other songs seems to feel like then I was randomly humming to this song while I was working and this is perfect! Also, a wonderful vibe.

I think it has been emphasised a lot on how Furihata reacts to Akashi, how he blushes like crazy, how he also subconsciously wants Akashi to make him fall in love with him. Because deep down, as again, Furihata genuinely loves Akashi but he was never daring enough to do it and since Akashi had never showed any indication, so Akashi had to confess in order for Furihata to be brave enough to smack their lips together to confess too.

☆ Je Fais De Toi Mon Essentiel by Emmanuel Moire Infinitely bless @miss-cactus (and her naughty brother lol) for this! This is song is seriously sooooo beautiful ;w; I don't care if reader's don't listen to the playlist, but OH MY GOD! If nobody had listened to this, is seriously missing out. (just as a song in general is beautiful) and the lyrics are just akjsfhakjsfhaf AKASHI'S WORDS! In Akashi's perspective and the song that Akashi sang to when they were in the car, and Cactus chose the perfect line for it ;w;

This song basically concludes everything!!! From their feelings for each other since high-school and all the way until the day they die! It's basically everything I wanted this story to be about, just their pure love for one another and to share their happiness together ;w;

Also, I want to point out in regards of Furihata's decision on staying in France. It's really not just a spontaneous and reckless decision lol. As stated and shown in the story, Furihata is somewhat a successful person with a career, but Furihata has other passion and interest which he seemed to enjoy doing which is photography and Akashi notices this. Even though with a career, at a time some will have a change of heart. So if Furi wants to stay in France with Akashi, he has thought it through enough, and can afford to even live by even without Akashi's money lolol. ๑ Premises ๑ Cactus, without her, AkaFuri will be hobos. I . AM . NOT . KIDDING ! She just whip out the map of France and pin point me to everything! I didn't ask for that but her soul is made from angel clay and she showed me this beautiful town, and I am floored! I didn't feel that much motivation and inspiration before o(≧∇≦o)

So why not Paris? XD 1, I didn't want Paris, I wanted a natural, country/cottage vibe and not the city. 2, proven by Cactus, "actual paris : if you want a cup of coffee you have to give up your wife and your 2 children bc it's way too expensive" (XD actually there's more but those parts are only between us lol) 3, I want to pull Akashi from his usual portrayal of rich and luxurious life style. I mean.... he's still rich, just not lavish in that lifestyle. In here, Akashi's basically bare as a canvas, and painting it on his own. 4, I google mapped Paris.... and if anything, Akashi and Furihata will probably get run over by traffic LOLOL! 5, we hate the crowds lolol and we'd do anything to drown the citizens for AkaFuri to be alone. I'm not even gonna be discreet about this xD.

☆ Mornac-Sur-Seudre This main village, is the most beautiful town picked by Cactus. It's not so 'in the face' although not so splashed in a lot of colours (except for the oyster huts), it is a very vibrant village. We totally fell in love with it. It's quiet, and not a lot of villagers, so it's perfect for AkaFuri to have their stroll hand in hand (人 •͈ᴗ•͈) They're also very famous for their oysters LOL! So yeah..... Akashi fed Furi oysters.... because....it's yummy.... LOL! Video reference here. There's another beautiful video but I can't find it no more. ;; Other references; here, here and here.

☆ Seagull Train Furihata loves train (and so do I) and since the train exists here! WHY THE HELL NOT?! I really love writing this part! I fell in love with the department Cactus picked and everything was so perfect and beautiful. Pictures and videos of it was just so breath taking ;w; and it's a steam train! I've never ride one before, but I have been into exhibits in the train museum. The smell is amazing lol. It's like sniffing my humidifier......but bigger.

This is the train I had saw mostly from it. the 030 T 3 from 1891. It's still operational so choo-choo!!! they go!

Video reference ; here Train reference; here, here Other references; here, here, here and here.

☆ Saintes & Royan These two towns are what's closest to Mornac. I didn't have much on Royan because Saintes had a beautiful charm, so this is where they would have their wonderful date <3 and talk a little bit about their feelings.

Cactus correcting me on the description on the city as I just woke up from my sleep, is seriously a way to wake up in the morning at 5am XD LOLOL!!

There's a few churches too, and has an interesting history from the Roman empire :D really intriguing.

The bridge where they have their little confession in high-school (◡‿◡✿)

This video here, absolutely pretty!

☆ Akashi's Floristry; Fleurs d’acacia Cactus picked out the most beautiful name! "So either L’acacia (just the tree) or Fleurs d’acacia (acacia flowers)" The Acacia because it rhymes with Akashi's name : Aca - as in 'Aka' in Akashi. Ci - as in sea...because they're near the ocean. A - as in....... h(a)m because Cactus said so... and I can't even disagree because it's where Furi getting some of those..... meat....because Akashi's ham.....like his meat.......y'know..... We're very dignified ( ᵘ ᵕ ᵘ ⁎)

The design of Akashi's 3 story shop/studio/apartment..... I really don't have any reference, it's all in the head LOLOL! Akashi basically lives in simplicity, his shop all on the ground floor, and the second floor is his art studio where paints and do whatever he wants. Finally the third floor is where he stays, it was wasn't very detailed but it's very spacious and cozy >w<!

☆ The Drive-in theatre Bruuuuuh......the confession is the thing! Akashi sneaking in his opportunity to confess. What more is there need to be said? AkaFuri : mlemlemlemlemlemlemlemlem~

Ohh~ Akashi's pretty Bentley of course.

☆ The Landes The finale of their romance ❀.(*´◡`*)❀. I think we all know what a Volkswagen van looks like LOL! And they had the funky in the van and Akashi took Jean's advice with the bamboo charcoal.

Cactus showed this pretty place and I'm just ヽ(；▽；)ノ

Of course I'd really like to say it again. Furihata's decision to stay with Akashi was really not for the sake of a 'happy ending' or so. They've had deep feelings for each other since high-school and bonded closely, but Akashi didn't show any indication of romantic interest out of respect for Furihata's relationship, and Furihata knowing nothing about Akashi's mutual feelings just kept his feelings to himself. As told by the story, Furihata has a career and stable income. But even though his life is dandy in Tokyo with his job, that doesn't mean it's something he wants to keep pursuing or maintain, as we age, we search for something else to add into our experience. Not to say that we're forever unsatisfied, it's just how life is. We accomplish something, and we move on to another thing, and then another and another. It's really something beautiful about it, and life's just us exploring :] In Akashi and Furihata's case, is that they've already have what they wanted, a life of their own, choosing their own path and what they don't have was each other and now that they've bonded and opened up themselves, they can finally pursue another beautiful life together (>*^▽^*<)

๑ Book, Night on the Galactic Railway by Kenji Miyaza ๑ This is a real book. Also, my favourite! There is an anime as well, but if anyone wants the PDF feel free to drop me a DM and I'll give it to ya'.

In here, the story of the galactic railway impacted their lives a little bit differently. With Akashi the loss of his mother and Furihata to live the last adventure before death.

It is shown they have extreme love for this book, and it really is a beautiful book and there's just endless things to talk about, as it is place in an infinite travel of the train through the galaxy, meeting new people, seeing new things, the mysteries of stories and making meaningful relationship despite never being able to see them again.

The sentiment of Giovanni and Campanella is also similar to Akashi and Furihata. Before anything else, they want to have their adventure together before eventually parting their ways (and i really mean, until death do them apart.)

๑ Other Juices ๑ There some nitty stuff that aren't just there for show xD Well, kind of but there's some sentiments and stuff so...

☆ The Sunflower Maybe because I'm bias to sunflowers LOL! But Furihata is pretty with yellow! Sunflowers with darker brown florets are absolutely beautiful. The pendent I had in mind was literally the one I had when I was a kid (but I donno it's gone now lol). I googled other sunflower pendent but it's ugleh...

It associates with the theme of this story which is 'Sunrise' as in new beginnings, Furihata's fresh start to pursuing the person he actually loves.

Sunflowers also grow towards the sun. They radiate pure joy and positivity. They also symbolise unwavering faith and unconditional love; which is AkaFuri's undying love here despite the years.

Sunflowers are also given to show their deepest to the person, so Akashi gift him a sunflower :3 also because Furi looks pretty in yellow, fight me.

In chinese myth, sunflower are best for business... So with Furi around, Akashi's business will bloom LOLOL!

Funfact: In greek myth, a nymph named Clytie fell deeply in love Apollo, god of the sun. Although Clytie was beautiful by nymph standards, Apollo did not reciprocate her feelings, or acknowledge it. (except Akashi appreciates Furi's love okay?) After days of hopeless devotion, the nymph then transformed herself into a sunflower and constantly turned towards the sun so she could always be with the one she loved (Furihata's chasing sunrises because Akashi is there ok?).

☆ The Happy Street Cats :D This is actually a real book I have, a gift by my teacher before I leave S.Korea. The passage idiom is extracted by this page as well.

The front cover of the book is also yellow.

Yellow : Sunrise + Sunflower.

There's so much yellow in this story LOL!

☆ The Movie Cactus : Idol movie Me : *internal screaming* I swear we are always soooooooo close to making this whole thing crack XD

This scene is a real brain wreck lololol. (Still contemplating if it was romantic enough)

☆ Akashi's Florist number I extracted that number from an oyster restaurant LOLOL! Thankfully Cactus changed it.... we were planning on a crack bonus in which, Furihata orders oysters before calling Akashi.

It didn't happen. But if it did.

Furihata will order some oysters. And not regret it.

*Akashi judging*

☆ French Dialogues + Akashi teaching Furihata French Bless Cactus, she's my happiness now. I have no idea how many weird noises were coming out from our mouths just to understand how the French consonant 'R' sounds like to put it into words LOL! XD Without her, it'd be a disaster.

We were looking at other romantic phrases and found the perfect one ;w;

“Je suis ton bonheur.” means "I am your happiness" (oh god, google translate voice just keeps playing in my head LOLOL! help) Which, what else can be said? LOL Akashi's happy ok? Since this story is from Furihata's perspective, I really wanted to put him into the spot of being a foreigner (he speaks english and mandarin lolol just clueless in French, because Akashi is supposed to guide him). So while Cactus work her magic, being the Akashi to my Furihata. I tried to emphasis a lot on the characters expression etc, at least to indicate of what was going on....tbh even I forgot what they were saying. *just as clueless as Furi and Cactus cackling somewhere.

Everything in here is just Cactus being amazing ;w; and pure patience LOLOL!

๑ Side Characters ๑

☆Shérine ............ We butchered the original female side. Her name was Camille.... but I was sooo tempted to name it after *coouugh* :] because it's pretty. Also her hair was blond with hazel-green eyes.... yea we buried her.

Shérine wins now... Shérine is life.

Shérine will be in their wedding.

☆Jean Kirstein (of AOT) It's JEAN! ...........someone gotta tease Akashi with no filter.

(ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ FINAL NOTES

The last section when Furihata wakes up and makes his decision, believe it or not, I was in the bus. While typing to Cactus, I was literally shaking in the bus and my eyes stung because of dust and I was in tears. I was between crying and laughing. Finished it at home ;w; Cactus was such a darling through it all.

I really had fun writing this with Cactus ;w; she's the best!!!!!!! And hopefully we'll make some crack stuff because we're hooligans like that XD.

:D BYE!

[visarcana]

What do we know about... Egzardia

Okay, let’s finally do this. Egzardia is another of Asturia’s neighbors and allies and the home to a certain snake of a prince in my fic; not a popular character I guess, but also real fun to write!

So what do we know about this country from the series, artbooks and other official material? So, similar to Basram (the previous in the WDWK series), this fictional country seemed to have an obvious source of inspiration, which was the Earth’s France. Or was it?

Canon information

1. Egzardia is a country famed for its fashions

And that is what first pointed into the direction of France. The pants that Millerna wears are somewhat outrageous in Asturia but in Egzardia, where she got them from, they are the height of fashion. Here’s Millerna, her pants, and a bonus “come at me bro” Allen.

So, the new trends for the daring come from Egzardia, as the Filmbooks confirm also near the picture of the soldiers (”when it’s not uniforms, Egzardia seems to set the trends in fashion”).

This sort of goes together also with the fact that “they try to make even their guymelefs beautiful” (Roman artbook). The same book also says their guymelefs have elegant, round shapes (the Mazdas of guymelef world haha).

2. Egzardia is a neighboring country to Asturia

Because Asturia formed an alliance with its neighboring countries (episode 23).  The map of Gaea (from the Vision of Escaflowne Fanbook) puts it north of Basram and South of Zaibach. Makes you wonder where the border with Asturia was supposed to lie? But yeah, as we know now, this whole map is fanon.  

3. The design of the soldiers/guymelefs

Regarding the soldier designs, it is, again, obvious that somebody did their homework and looked up the 17th-18th century military uniforms as an inspiration.

Here is the Egzardian general named Jardi (Jarudi) and his regular soldier underling. There are no official transcriptions of these names so we can only guess how it was supposed to be transcribed (Giardi? Jardie?).

Anyway, what I was able to figure out was that the inspiration for the general was the European uniform of a grenadier (the soldier who throws grenades) that became distinguished from other troops in 17th century. Mostly because of the mitre cap (like the Pope wears) which is a trademark of this troop.

Upon closer look, the closest examples look to be the British grenadiers! The bottom part of the mitre above the forehead in particular looks very British (compare).

So was I off with France after all? When you google French grenadier, you see that mostly their mitre caps are all fur and they look a bit further away from our guy Jardi... but he does have a French-looking pom-pom on the top of his hat... and the gillet, the gaiters... guess the uniforms of the era had these elements often in common.

Here’s image for ants of Jardi from the back (Settei Artbook). I want to use the ponytail and bow on Gilles’ design as well.

4. The flag/coat of arms

It looks like this (this is my work using the sketch in the artbooks and coloring it according to the scheme shown in the anime).

So, what do you think it represents? I think the other crests are more obvious in that than this one. The only thing that comes to my mind is a variation of Fleur de Lys, but I guess it’s because I’m partial to France with this. Or maybe a fancy-looking spear? They definitely use spears on the battlefield.

(don’t ask me why Basram flag is involved in a shot of mostly Egzardian soldiers lol)

5. The Egzardian warship is called Triville. 

For this, we have a transcription from the official subs. Tréville is a commune/family name in France (okay, not to be too partial to France, you can find another little town called Treville in Italy). And also a character (based on a real historical figure) called Monsieur de Tréville in Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers. The name seems related the region of Trois-Villes, so basically, tréville is a fancier way of spelling “Three Towns” to my understanding. But there was also a French admiral de Latouche-Tréville who had three French ships named Latouche-Tréville after him, so this seems the most likely inspiration, if there was any.

So what did I do with this information so far?

Not too much to be honest. Obviously, I named the prince Gilles and I made up the name of the capital of Egzardia as Marsial, just a play on Marseille. I made Gilles dress flashily, but he would not pause at it as an Egzardian. Since Basram is said to be the only republic among the known countries, I made Egzardia a kingdom as well, but put Gilles himself further down the succession line.

This was necessary because this engagement with Millerna is a “plan B” not only for King Aston (who had her engaged to Dryden before that), but also for Egzardians. Gilles’ older brother, who is the current king in Egzardia, is already married with a son. If Millerna (or any of the Asturian princesses) had been considered for the marriage, they would have arranged it much sooner, while Gilles’ father had still been alive. Instead, this deal is closed in wartime with the younger brother being sent. Who’s all women, hunts, games... that sort of stuff. And not too eager to marry. But he quickly takes liking to Millerna hahaha!

I would also like to point out that the order of succession is male primogeniture, so the sons of the older brother pass over Gilles as they are born (and he already has one), so poor guy really can’t think of getting the throne in Marsial anytime soon. Which is another reason for Gilles to be married off to Palas, where he can think of being a king regent through Millerna.

This isn’t an ideal situation for Aston either, because it becomes possible that the two countries will be joined after his death, and not necessarily with Asturia coming out on top, if the older brother has much power over Gilles. So yeah, it is a plan B for a reason, even though it may seem a better match at the first sight. It’s not necessarily an upgrade for Millerna to marry an actual prince instead of the wealthy local merchant prince, who brings the money and at least keeps the power securely in Asturia.

But the war goes on, Grava needs allies, he is sick, and he has to make sure Millerna has a suitable husband after he’s gone. Coughwhoisnotallencough. Because once he’s dead, Millerna can do whatever she wants, she’s a queen. And Eries won’t have the “older sister” privileges much longer either... since she didn’t want to be the queen, at some point she would have to bow down and respect Millerna’s will, not the other way around. I wrote a bit of this change of dynamic in Chapter 9 already .

So yeah, Aston really has a grudge against Allen in my head, so he could even play dangerously to prevent him from marrying Millerna. But then, Asturia and Egzardia could be joined also with Palas as the capital. Asturia is the strongest after Zaibach, so currently stronger than Egzardia. So if Gilles held some grudges or an ambition to take over his brother once he’s married to Millerna (and she lets him rule her country and do as he pleases), there is an option of that. So yeah, a risky game, but the possible gains (and losses) for everyone involved are great with this marriage.

By the way, Gilles and his as of yet unnamed older brother also have two unnamed sisters. I’ll probably name them only if they appear in the story. Gilles is the youngest one, that is why he’s had all the time and resources in the world to play around until now. He has a guymelef as a member of the royal family (guymelefs are rare and expensive goods) and is a skilled swordsman. He’s quite charismatic and quickly became popular with the Asturian courtiers.

I made his character a bit of a play on the trope of the rakish handsome brute who after his youth spent womanizing falls for the innocent heroine (possibly with an arranged marriage involved)... aand then does a magical 180 by the power of love, becomes a great man and off they ride into the sunset. But that’s another story which is no longer worldbuilding, so I’ll just stop here. Sorry for the long post again.

[gloomverse-theories]

 The Mancers - Who are they?

Back in Revelations, Purple introduced us to the idea of 5 Magicians who were able to disregard the known Rights of Magic, or use loopholes specific to themselves to do so. 

Here’s the mural we got of them in that very chapter:

It so happens that Purple introduces us to four of them in his book, so we are here to bring the information we have. Here’s what we’ve been able to deduce about them, both from the book and the webcomic.

Disclaimer: All titles are for fun unless mentioned in the story.

Going in chronological order, we have Amaryllis.

The First Mancer. The Goddess of Stratoverse. Freer of Humankind.

The first Mancer to be mentioned by name in-story (Cirrus in The Beach Episode Without Beach) and called the “Sun” or a Goddess, perhaps you have wondered what kind of Goddess she could be, and what she might have done to earn this title.

In the time before humans set out and settled the world (about 2000 years before the present), a Storm confined humanity into caves on a small island. When the Storm weakened, those communities could trade, but nobody ever got farther than half a day away, because the respite was so short.

Until her. As a child she discovered the power of Magic and cleared the Storm with raw power. Her name? Amaryllis. And the Isle carrying her name, now a holy land, is said to be where much of humanity was confined in its earliest days. Her current whereabouts are unknown and according to Hyacy Tradition, her “Element” is the Sky. There are four more: Light, Darkness, Seed, and Water. We’ll come back to them. 

Now back to Amaryllis.

In the stained glass we see in Revelations, we see a child in a yellow dress holding her hands towards the sky and seemingly catching a lightning strike in them: this is Amaryllis. She is seen as a Goddess in Stratoverse, associated with the Sun, and with the color yellow.

Yellow is the color of royalty for Stratoverse. Additional bonus fact: Amarillo/Amarilla is Spanish for yellow. 

From Amaryllis Isle, humankind spread all over Ecoverse where they would begin to discover more and more of Magic and build a society for the next 500 years. Which is when the next two Mancers come in. But before we get to explain “Hyacy”, we have to talk about the second Mancer: Malus. Breaker of Chains.

By the time Malus appeared, most of the magicless people had been forced into some form of slave labor for about 200 years, with their magic Masters keeping hats and wands as a closely guarded secret. 

Born a slave to magicless parents, Malus gained her Magic on her 13th birthday, apparently without a hat. Malus’ strong magical ability let her set out to end their reign in an angry, bloody revolution.

Her magic is directly linked to another Element of the Hyacy Tradition, Water. We see her figure at the bottom of the glass mosaic, surrounded by waves and bearing five blue jewels on her forehead. Her expression is quite fierce and her gesture of “parting waves” aggressive thanks to it.

It is unknown whether she has a link to the Mermaid, but if any Mancer made her, it’s most likely Malus.

This two year long revolution was ended by a girl born into a high ranking Magic household who was only sixteen when the revolution began. Her name was Hyacinth and she soon rose to become the leader of the people that survived the revolution, preaching peace to them with great charisma. Unlike Malus, who wasn’t a politician and disappeared as soon as the revolution was over, she remained a part of society the following years, and largely contributed to rebuilding Ecoverse after the civil war killed off about half of the population.

Now... there is no historical or even narrative evidence that Hyacinth has magic. So why do we suspect her to be a Mancer? Well...

Hyacinth and her followers built a religion/belief system, Hyacy, that reposed on five Elements: Light, Sky, Seed/Soil, Water and Darkness. If you were attentive, you have already seen the motif representing all five within the comic.

It appears that each Mancer corresponds to an element. The others are more obvious than Hyacinth, but if you go by elimination you can figure out she should be the Seed mancer. 

There are very few surviving records of Hyacinth’s magic (if at all), but according to the belief of her most Traditionalist followers, humans were most closely aligned with the Seed Attribute. The ease at which she unified the survivors, even the rarity of revolts against a former Master taking control, point towards her having mind affecting abilities of the Seed Attribute. Malus, despite no other magician being able to do more than slow her down, also implied that Hyacinth was stronger than herself, to the extent of refusing to fight her.

Purple’s summary of Mancer abilities supports this. He mentions that they can affect the human mind, though no direct mention of it is made in his book. As the one who would have the same element humans supposedly belong to, Seed, and more specifically humans with plants on their heads, if any character has mind control, it is most likely her.

She is the woman in the green dress and three green gems in our picture of all five. She has a peaceful expression, emphasizing her role of bringing peace to the revolution.

Furthermore, if you asked an Ecoversian living today, they would reply that both Hyacinth and Malus are still alive today, 1500 years later, but their whereabouts are unknown. We even see them in Rylie’s dream behind Yellow, which happens 500 years after the revolution. Their hair is different from the mural, but they are there as evidenced by the gems they wear and their locations.

Hyacinth

And Malus

Alright, three done, two mancers to go. Let’s tie over the historical events first, however.

200 years after Malus and Hyacinth, religious dissent broke out. Traditionalists claimed humans only belonged to the Seed element, and that Malus’ rampage had been caused by her being so interested in Water; Revisionists argued that restraining humans to the Seed element and devaluing the achievements of those of other Elements was not the way to go. Their biggest argument? Amaryllis, they insisted, had Weather (Sky) Magic and was obviously very important to human history. These Revisionists were given the newly discovered Stratoverse to avoid a civil war, and settled there. Much like Gloomverse, their Magic took various forms until a mysterious event dubbed “The Return” a hundred years later. Of who, or what, we do not know. But that event seems to have changed Stratoverse forever, and caused them to only seek Weather magic.

1000 years after Amaryllis drove back the Storm and 1000 years prior to the current story, Stratoverse and Ecoverse began to clash once again. This time, it was on a new landmass that would become known as Gloomverse.

As Gloomversians apparently didn’t write down the events of their founding, the only surviving records come from two sources in Stratoverse and Ecoverse, mostly the correspondence between their then-leaders Narcissus and Queen Asperitas. They decided to have Gloomverse become the land that would unite them once more, and rather than fight over the new continent, they decided to accept arrivals from both countries.

From these records, we learn of Asperitas sending in a very gifted Magician to keep the peace and manage the many arrivals. In the glass mural, she is the central figure, a hand holding up the Sun. Almost an adult when she first reached Gloomverse, she went by the name of Prisma.

Prisma managed to do this very well for a few years and one of the first settlements is now called City of the Ancients. This place has been abandoned after a certain unrecorded event (most likely Prisma’s murder) and has become Nim and Purple’s place of study. 

Prisma is seen glowing and speaking with grey text right before she is murdered. She also carries a Sun-shaped scepter (her wand?). She also is implied to have been the creator and/or master of the Colors. She is the Light Mancer, and is also the one we have seen in the recent “Less than human” chapter talking with Rylie.

Though we know a little about her life, her abilities are largely unknown. She shares the gem placement with Malus, but hers are yellow (the color of light/the sun/Stratoverse royalty) and there are also three of them.

We still have one figure on the mural to talk about:

This hidden one, who by elimination is the Darkness mancer. They are hiding behind Prisma in the purple mass perhaps representing the Storm, looking through to the side next to Amaryllis and holding something resembling a mask. Interestingly, their body is mostly hidden as well...

This is our prime suspect for the aforementioned Prisma Murder. The figure shrouded in Darkness with red eyes, carrying a black wand and covered in rags. 

Mooching “I can’t let this happen again” Hobo, the Dark Overlord, Amadeus. Husband of Petunia and father of Harold and the famous Wallis Gloom. I could go deep into detail about him right here and now, but as he is not mentioned in Purple’s book and apparently not a known part of history, I will keep this for a different post.

In any case it’s pretty clear he is the same person, just... a thousand years later. We already know Hyacinth and Malus are likely to still be alive after 1500 years after all.

So there you have it.  Five elements, five Mancers:

- Amaryllis of the Sky

- Malus of Water

- Hyacinth of Seed/Soil

- Prisma of Light

- Amadeus of Darkness 

Any further theory or linking to other characters would be pure speculation, so we’ll cut it here. Thank you for your time!

[bbq-hawks-wings]

If your interested, I also mentioned that Apollo was the god of oracles and prophecy. And there was that prophecy about Endeavor bringing everyone's demise in the form of Dabi :) even if he wasn't mentioned by name, we know he's the 'darkness' Endeavor's light will summon. And to fit in with that more, Dabi killing Endeavor will erase him from the narrative, which is like the dreams he was having.

(Continued) If Dabi = Apollo, and to Apollo, Hawks were his messenger birds then hmm whatdya think? *nudge nudge* He! Knows! The! Thing! Horikoshi is probably mixing a lot of stories. Someone once wrote that Icarus fell all the way down to Tartarus, but I can't find any source for that. We know he drowned at sea, but is there anything written on what happened after in detail or is that it? I'd also like to mention, while we're on the topic of myths.

(Continuing) Hawks' eyes are similar to the eyes of Horus/Ra are they not? His eyes are a big deal in the manga, and Ra is known as 'The Hidden One' Now we know Hawks is always hiding himself behind his feathers, there's at least three specific panels of him doing that. The MOST INTERESTING part is that Ra has many names, and one is secret, because knowing that would mean having power over him. (Applies to Dabi too in a way tbh.) but! We're thinking of Keigo Takami here ;)

(Last part) And Dabi held the power over him when he shouted it out and made Hawks lose his cool there. Bonus: Horus lost his left eye in a war with Set, and Dabi's foot was on Hawks' left eye and burned it. - anon from Foxy's tags.

I am VERY interested in the extended/multiple myth angle, particularly in regards to Hawks, Foxy anon. (Thanks for dropping by to talk, btw.) I've read everything over that you've sent, and if it's okay, I'd like to review your thoughts and chime in at the end with my own. I'm going to do it under the cut, though, because this is going to get long. Lol

I absolutely agree with you that Dabi is likely either a front-runner or the main agent of darkness summoned by Endeavor's light. The concept of the prophecy was introduced in canon, and I don't doubt Horikoshi plans to explicitly bring it up again. Considering Dabi's supposed dark connections to Endeavor's past he's a prime candidate to knock Endeavor out of the sky. When you combine this with the fact that Dabi's hair is black while Touya's appears to be snow white with the character for "light" spelled out in his name, it's hard to believe Dabi won't have some major role to play in this prophecy. The thematic idea that Apollo/Touya, as this more symbolic role than anything, in the background gives Hawks this prophecy to pass on about the incoming darkness is also not unlikely.

I'm not so sure the Hawks = Horus-Ra angle tracks as cleanly, though. Still, I'll follow your thought process first and give it the benefit of the doubt when discussing it before adding my thoughts. I'll be referring to Horus and Ra as the same entity as from my cursory research they were occasionally combined into the same deity and both share some nominal similarities with Hawks. Please also note Egyptian mythology is not my strong suit, and it has its own complexities I'm unfamiliar with. I'm only working with what I know and can research on the surface.

The note about his eyes are fascinating considering the fact that the Eye of Horus and the Eye of Ra are both major, destinct parts of the Egyptian mythology as well as having their own separate symbolic meanings and power - The right Eye of Ra representing the sun and having associations with aggression and destruction while the left Eye of Horus, representing the moon, was associated with healing, sacrifice, protection and wisdom - even being referred to as "the all-seeing eye."

Yet as potentially rich and interesting this angle is, I'm not entirely sure it's close enough to canon to stick.

My first objection starts with his proposed equivalence to Ra who is considered king of the gods and creator of all things as well as the personification of the sun itself. Imo, this is just too lofty of a position to accurately attribute to Hawks. Despite losing the sweet "bird of prey" aesthetic, I think Thoth would probably be a better fit as the god of the moon and writing, particularly as he restores the Eye of Horus. There's also the issue of which eye is burned and the significance of them - seeing as Hawks' left eye was burned, which according to this theory would be the Eye of Horus, it would make more sense for this to read as Hawks losing his motivation to work for those more selfless, positive qualities that up to this point have defined his character and leave only the Eye of Ra, the more destructive and violent tendencies, to reign unless some other character embodying Thoth restored it for him.

This premise of the right and left eyes on its own is positively dope and has a Shonen series begging to be made of it. However, I find it too far removed from the proven inspiration of HeroAca so far to be much more than a neat thought exercise for our purposes today. At least for the moment it would make sense to stick closer to the Greco-Roman angle we have at the moment, especially considering how closely tied together Dabi, Endeavor, and Hawks canonically are. If the Icarus story is meant to be the case as well and we wanted to flesh out Hawks individually more, I could see an angle that keeps the bird motif as well as the consequences of Daedalus/Endeavor's hubris directly impacting him as well.

Nevertheless, with the Egyptian aspect set to the side for now and sticking to our speculation around the Icarus myth for the moment, I'd like to posit that if Horikoshi is actually intending to take the larger mythos around Daedalus to explain the dynamics of these characters Hawks will be playing the role of one or two myths outside of merely acting as Dabi/Icarus' tattered wings. It requires some creative liberties to work; but nothing I'd consider too outside the realm of reason to break it.

Long before the tower, and even the birth of Icarus himself, Daedalus had an apprentice - either Talos or Perdix depending on the source. This apprentice was brilliant - even more so than Daedalus himself - and looked up to him to emulate him in his admiration of him. Though in this myth Daedalus commits the upcoming crime himself out of jealousy of his apprentice, if we tweaked it to mean "due to Daedalus' jealousy, Talos/Perdix was pushed out of a tower to his demise" the angle still works depending on the direction the manga takes. Athena - goddess of wisdom, and interesting in the context of HeroAca, the clever, noble, and positive aspect of war - looked on Talos/Perdix with favor and before he could be killed by the fall was transformed into a partridge who, remembering his past life, never soared or climbed to high places again and only nests close to the ground.

Like the other roles it's a stretch, and we really don't have enough canon material to work with to prove it either way, but a couple of notes in particular gives this theory enough merit for me to keep tucked in the back of my head as we go on.

A more direct, cause and effect relationship with Endeavor should he actually be playing the role of Daedalus.

The specific note of admiration and subsequent betrayal leading to the younger's downfall due to the previously unknown envy of the older.

If this myth pertains to events that have already happened in the manga (i.e. the fall of Talos/Perdix was Hawks' "adoption" by the HPSC) the low-dwelling partridge transformation fits not only because of Hawks' humble and wary nature but because of the symbolic blessing of Athena in particular being the catalyst for the change.

If this is meant to be indicative of events that will happen in the future (Hawks' burned wings, the epiphany about Endeavor, etc) it still works whether Hawks gets his wings back or not. In the case he doesn't he will be a grounded bird, though far from useless and still radiant; and if he does it leaves open the opportunity to squeeze in another myth - that of the Phoenix - instead of the partridge which ties in much more strongly with the theme of transformation and rebirth while keeping with the bird motif as well as ties in Endeavor's personal trademark of fire. This second ending also has the potential to work thematically whether Hawks forgives Endeavor or not depending on the interpretation - the Phoenix rises again reborn despite the fire, or the fire itself gives the Phoenix new life to soar again.

In this case, both Perdix and Icarus fall from high towers due to Daedalus' hubris - the first lured there out of false pretense through no fault of his own and the second out of desperation and even mania to escape and live his own life; but notably, while Icarus loses his wings and falls to his doom, Perdix reaches the ground safely and continues on to live on transformed as a new being.

Again, this is all speculation, and Horikoshi can crush our dreams completely with a single chapter release, but the thought experiment is fun even if I wasn't sure every myth brought up quite works with the canon revealed to us so far, and I get the added bonus of learning about new mythologies I might otherwise not have looked into myself.

Thanks for dropping these in my inbox, anon! I know I may have shot down the Egyptian myth part a bit in regards to fitting with canon, but your points make for killer AU potential! Are there any other characters you see as having parallels to Egyptian gods - other AUs I’ve seen have given Dabi the role of Anubis, for example? I'd love to hear more!

[eat-the-richard]

Why Super Mario Sunshine is kind of bad (and how to fix it)

It’s safe to say that in our current hellscape that there are few games in the Mario franchise with as strong of a following online than Super Mario Sunshine. And how could it not? It’s so unique and fun that most people could probably have a good time with it. But it’s interesting to note just how much this perspective has changed over time. 

When Sunshine came out it was considered by some to be the black sheep of the series. Or at the very least a noticeable step down from 64. There’s quite a lot wrong with Mario Sunshine. While there’s a great game at the core of this thing, there’s certainly a few miles of paint-like goop to sift through.

What’s frustrating is that a lot of these problems could have been solved with just a bit more development time. Mario Sunshine was rushed. This can be observed even without prior knowledge, but it becomes plainly evident when you look at some of the prerelease videos. In some instances it doesn’t even resemble the final product. Even at E3 2002, just three months before launch, there are a lot of noticeable differences to the final product.

Because of this rushed development, a lot of corners needed to be cut to pad out the game’s relatively lacking amount of content. The result is a game that is fun and well designed in some instances but a complete and utter disaster in others. 

The issues plaguing Mario Sunshine were emblematic of a Nintendo-wide issue. At the start of the GameCube’s life, many prominent franchises were rushed along development to meet strict deadlines to fill out the console’s thinning library and boost sales. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a textbook example. A lot of people had issues with that one too when it came out. Despite some clearly dumb points about the game’s art style, there’s definitely a lot to say about how Wind Waker pads out limited content. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

Thankfully, in 2013, the Wind Waker received an HD rerelease for the Wii U. Alongside a hefty visual overhaul, there were many under the hood changes to make the game an overall smoother experience stemming directly from those 2003 critiques. Sailing is made way simpler and faster in this version and the Tingle-inspired back-half of the game is shortened significantly. These two changes alone make this version superior, at least to me.

In the years since, I believed that Sunshine could have benefited from a rerelease similar to Wind Waker. Not necessarily in terms of its visuals (which I think have held up rather well) but in terms of its structure. Some small changes to the way Sunshine progresses could really benefit it overall, and I believed, erroneously, that it was only a matter of time before it received this treatment.

But we live in a post-3D All Stars world, and Nintendo’s response is clear. They believe Mario Sunshine is perfectly fine as is. Just touch up some of the textures, give it a resolution increase, and you got yourself a solid product. And yeah, its still pretty fun like this. But its hard to look past the missed potential in refining some of Sunshine’s rougher edges.

Which is what I plan to outline in this video. If I were to be given the reigns to nosedive Nintendo’s current plans to revamp a 2002 GameCube game, what would I change? After a suitable amount of complaining, I’ll discuss a fan project that comes close to doing what I think Nintendo should do.

So sit back, relax and let me refresh your body and spirit.

The first changes I’d make have to do with the frame rate. It’s evident that Super Mario Sunshine was supposed to be a 60 frames-per-second game. Some prerelease footage even shows as much. But somewhere late in development, the framerate was capped at 30, making it the only 3D Mario Game post-64 to not reach 60. Using Gecko codes, it’s possible to unlock the framerate and play at a pretty consistent 60. It’s so consistent that it starts raising the question of why Nintendo didn’t implement this into the Switch rerelease. This code isn’t emulator exclusive either, it also works pretty well when used on Wii consoles. Also, a hypothetical rerelease using the source code wouldn’t even have to deal with this anyway. But it’s good that the game works so well like this even without more structural changes. I don’t really need to explain the benefit of an increased framerate, so strike that one down.

And with that out of the way, it’s time to outline the biggest change my hypothetical Mario Sunshine remaster would make. One seemingly small but with major ramifications towards the rest of the game. But first, some background.

Super Mario 64 took a pretty big risk back in 1996 by significantly changing the main objective of playing a platformer. It was no longer about clearing a level. You aren’t going through these areas to reach an end point. The objective is now to find certain major collectibles, in this case power stars. But the game doesn’t want you to collect all of them. I’ve heard a lot of discourse recently about the boot-out system, but even when I was a kid I realized that 64 kicked you out of every level not just to pad out game length but to keep you moving around the castle. 

64 is always inviting you to explore new areas with a constant trickle of new content the more total stars you collect. At first, the amount of stars needed to unlock a new level are small. The first area of the castle has every level besides Bob-omb’s Battlefield locked behind a small star total. And the amount needed to progress onto the next full area with five more major levels is only 8. But these star totals gradually increase over time, requiring 30, 50, and finally 70 stars to unlock new content. But what stars you got never mattered, just how many in total. This allows for free exploration where the player doesn’t have to think about where their next objective is. For instance, exploring pretty much every cardinal direction of Lethal Lava Land will lead you in the direction of a star. And because it doesn’t matter which star you get, it allows players to choose how long they invest in each level. Are the constant treks up Tall Tall Mountain or Rainbow Ride annoying you? Well all those stars are completely optional, you just have to compensate by completing more of the other levels. It’s an ingenious system that allows for a lower total amount of levels to feel more rewarding.

Super Mario Sunshine is practically begging to be like this. In fact, for the first few hours, that’s exactly how it works. New levels are unlocked progressively through getting Shines. But it doesn’t work in quite the same way. These shine totals are never outlined to the player. It shows you that you’ll eventually be able to use the Rocket Nozzle and has objects like the pineapple blocking Sirena Beach to make you yearn for a Yoshi. But you’re not told when these things are to be unlocked; it just sort of happens. Which is fine, it definitely makes the game feel more mysterious. But it lacks that forward momentum of 64 where your end goal is always simple and in the back of your mind. Oh, I need 30 stars to unlock this big door. Sunshine doesn’t have this despite literally operating in the same way. But it still maintains the ability to slowly unlock content to players through playing more of the game, which is good. And importantly, which stars you get for these gates aren’t important, just that you’re getting them at all. And if the game stuck to this principle, that would’ve been great.

Except it didn’t.

After the rocket nozzle is unlocked and Pianta Village becomes accessible, your total amount of Shines is never relevant again. Instead, game progression is contingent upon completing mission 7 of every level. Not every shine is valued the same according to the game. The progression is far more linear than in 64. You can no longer choose to avoid the Chuckster mission. Or the Sand Bird mission. Or the teeth cleaning mission. Or racing Il Piantissimo three times. Or fighting Gooper Blooper three times. Or fighting Petey Pirahna twice. Or defeating these same Piranha Plant Gatekeepers five times. Or even chasing down and squirting on Shadow Mario E L E V E N T I M E S. There’s a lot of repetition here which would’ve been eased simply by allowing the player to avoid doing these missions wherever possible. 64 had similar situations of reused content, but it’s not as egregious when there’s no incentive to collect stars you don’t want to. 

This structure is also weird because there’s a ton of extra missions in this game. Some of the game’s most, err, fun segments are hidden away in Delfino Plaza. These can be some pretty time-consuming tasks. You know what I’m talking about. But that’s not all. Every course also has some bonus shines. Every secret stage has an additional Red Coin challenge. There’s some “cleverly” hidden shines even within certain missions. There’s even a mission 8 to every level. Every level also has a 100 coin mission which, just to get it out of the way, should absolutely not spawn the shine somewhere 100 feet away from you AND boot you out of the level upon collection AND not be possible in every mission. Like c’mon, Mario 64 got this right on the first try. So Nintendo went out of their way to put all these extra shines in the game, and yet none of them matter towards game completion. Which makes me wonder what the point of completing them is supposed to be?

All this extra content, regardless of quality, would benefit from a system similar to Mario 64. In its current state, there’s not much of a reason to even bother with these extra missions, especially when some of them are of questionable quality. On that same token, there’s some pretty fun missions hidden in this extra content, and it’s a shame that they aren’t more important.

Well, with that...  

B L U E    C O I N S

I almost forgot about you!

Blue Coins are pretty despised. But in concept they’re pretty smart to put in a game like this. It’s kind of like the Red Coins but on a broader scale. They’re packed into every little tiny corner of the levels, giving players more of a reason to explore the pretty environments. And once you collect 10 of them, you get a Shine Sprite from the local beavers. If these Blue Coin shines counted towards a grand total for game completion, Blue Coins could give players a nice buffer to replace some of the games more questionable missions. But just like all of the extra content, Blue Coins matter not one iota towards finishing the game. So, the only reason to collect Blue Coins at all is if you wanted to collect them all.

And that’s precisely why people hate them. Because collecting all the Blue Coins is an absolute nightmare. Let’s not even talk about how cryptic some of these coins are because honestly I’ll be here all day. Let’s instead talk about how impossible it is to know how close you are to getting every Blue Coin in a level. You can intuit through previous levels that it caps out at 30 per level, but the game never tells you that. There’s obviously no Blue Coin tracker like there is for shrines in Breath of the Wild, so if you’re frantically darting around Noki Bay looking for the one coin you missed that's hidden inside a wall for some reason, you’ve only got GameFaqs and Jesus to help you at that point. 

To top it all off, just like the 100 coins missions, it’s impossible to get every Blue Coin in every mission in a level. Some blue coins are exclusive to certain missions. And it’s impossible to know how many are exclusive, which ones are exclusive, how many exclusives you’ve gotten, how many exclusives you need. Must I continue? This process is a disaster and gives Blue Coins a bad name. If they were put in a game like Mario 64, I feel like these things would have much more of a positive reputation. But as it stands these things are so toxic they’ve been reduced to POW switch fodder in later games. 

I think Blue Coins summarize the issue with the extra content pretty succinctly. In a game like Mario 64, they’re harmless. But in a game where none of it is tied to beating the final level, the only purpose they have is 100% completion. And 100% completion should never be the focus of 3D Platformers. Some players prefer playing to completion but there’s a reason why most don’t. Fully completing a game is a soul commitment as much as it is a time commitment. It’s saying to yourself that I am willing to go through all the unfinished, janky, and cryptic content Mario Sunshine has to offer all for the extensive reward of… a different end screen. So yeah, there is no reason to get 100% of Mario Sunshine’s content. Even completionists are going to be disappointed. Not only is this content useless towards Any%, it’s aggravating for 100%, since fully completing the game is so unrewarding. 

So, how do we fix this issue? Well to do that, let’s take a look at a mod that, in my opinion, does exactly that: Super Mario Sunburn, made by Epicwade.

The biggest change Sunburn makes is in its requirements for completion. Rather than Bowser being locked behind completing the seven Shadow Mario shines, the door to Corona Mountain is opened when the player attains 70 shines overall. If you recall, that’s the exact same amount 64 requires of the player to reach the final level. This change, by itself, adjusts Sunshine more towards what I would like it to be. But if you’re crazy enough to prefer the previous mode of completion, it’s still there as an option.

That’s not all, though. Now, when you collect a Shine, you’re no longer booted out of the level, and instead are simply asked to save and then you’re free to explore the rest of the level. My feelings on this essentially boil down to which mission I’m playing. I think the first two shines of Bianco Hills show this working pretty much perfectly. You squirt on the gatekeeper to get the first shine and then you’re immediately free to go forward and fight Petey Piranha. This feels far more natural than having to get booted out after the first shine and make the entire trip through the first half of Bianco Hills just to get back to where you just were. So in this case, it’s a positive.

However, Sunshine very often changes its course layout per mission. And when that happens, it feels a bit unnecessary to have to boot out of a level manually and boot back in just to get the next event to trigger. Sometimes you can chain getting a bunch of shines out in the open with a secret stage which resets the level upon entering the newly placed warp pipe at the end of it. But otherwise you’re stuck pausing and exiting. I feel this issue may be able to be streamlined by doing something like Mario Odyssey does, where collecting certain Moons boot you to the beginning of the level with the new mission unlocked. This might be outside of the reach of Sunshine modding at the moment, though.

This isn’t the only change set to make Sunshine more open. One of my favorite parts of the original game was that you could see other levels whenever you looked around. Turning at the start of Bianco Hills and being able to see not only Delfino Plaza but also the yet to be unlocked Ricco Harbor and Pinna Park was fascinating to me when I first played it. Sunburn takes this concept one step further by allowing players to travel from stage to stage. For instance, taking the river in Bianco Hills spits you out Ricco, and climbing a vine in Ricco allows you to travel back. This is a pretty novel idea and definitely makes replaying the game an entirely different experience, especially when combined with the lack of boot out. It does lose me a bit in how it necessitates for every level to be unlocked at the start. As I mentioned previously, slowly unlocking stages to the player by collecting whatever collectible they’re using allows for 3D Platformers to have constant forward momentum, which is lost here. But for those who’ve already played the game I think this is a fun option.

Other quality of life changes are strictly positives. In most instances, Blue Coins are now accessible from any mission in a level. I say most because it’s impossible for some of these coins to make the transition. But in the vast majority of cases, it’s been done. More coins have been added to each stage, along with Red Coins counting as collecting two coins just like in 64. This makes getting 100 coins a lot easier, especially when you’re doing multiple missions of a stage in a row. Two of the game’s weakest sections become far more manageable with these changes. There’s some smaller changes too, like being able to skip cutscenes, Blue Coins no longer bringing up a save screen, and Shadow Mario’s invisible health bar being restored. There’s also new content here, with additional secret stages being accessible from the main courses. Nothing mind-blowing, but it’s at least pretty neat to run around Outset Island as a FLUDD-strapped Mario.

Super Mario Sunburn addresses a lot of my issues with the original version, which was exactly the point. I’m not the first to bring up these issues, nor will I be the last. There’s so much potential within Super Mario Sunshine to be one of the best examples of its genre, so to see it fall short in such fundamental areas is undeniably frustrating. As usual with Nintendo, and even with other publishers, it’s often the community that sees itself to correct the issues with the games they feel deeply passionate about. Basically the only difference between Sunburn and an official Sunshine remake or remaster would be a significant layer of polish. That still might happen, but I’m not holding my breath at this point. So if you find yourself feeling similarly as I do about Sunshine, it might be worth it to check Super Mario Sunburn out. Here’s the download link again if you’re curious.

[gaygwenpool]

Mysterio’s and Chameleon’s canon friendship 

I’ve limited myself to comics and indisputable panels, but if you’re really thirsty for Mysteleon content like me, there’s also the fact that (almost) every time they both appear in the same story, they are either directly working with one another (for example in cartoons like TSSM, 90′s Spider-man, Marvel’s Spider-man...) and often express interest in the other’s work or at least they are standing close to each other (ha!) or usually get mentioned one after the other (HA! thats what desperation smells like). And of course, unlike other villains, they are often unexpectedly polite and v professional in their team ups, no dick measuring contests and almost no backstabbing! 

Click on the pictures for the source (and to be able to read the actual lines lol) and on the read more for some context and explanations ~

Bonus from the Sinister Six novel trilogy:

Cham suggesting to politely wait for Beck to finish his newest murder show : 

Once Beck’s plan inevitably fails, not only Cham (disguised as the talkative cop) is there the Second he gets arrested but he immediately reminds him of the more successful part of his performance and praises n thanks him for it!! AND “GENUINE UNMISTAKABLE WARMTH”?? LIKE ARE YOU KIDDIN ME.

Cont. from the previous part, Beck is “practically hopping” with excitement to see his buddy ok this one could be debatable but after genuine unmistakable warmth and “wont spend so much as a single minute behind bars” im. 🤔🤔🤔 

Here’s the promised context  and some crying in the order of the photoset

1) Avengers Academy: Pretty much self-explanatory, Cham in disguise kicked Beck so hard his helmet shattered in order to fool some kids, once he can reveal himself he helps him up and apologizes. And you can practically smell that shared interest in acting :3

2) Grim Hunt: Sasha Kravinoff wants to bring Kraven back from the dead, she enlists help of Chammy and manipulates some villains n spiders. Listen, i get that they had to hire Electro for the actual necromancy but MYSTERIO?? For what, the little confusion mist and spooky effects he added to the graveyard??? For the animated spiders on Cham’s disguise? Like the he couldnt pull that on his own? Mysti didnt even need to be motivated for the Gauntlet challenge, his plans were already in motion! Cham got him purely because it’s “a pleasure to work with him” you cant change my mind

3) Ends of Earth: Most of the Mysteleon stuff comes from this arc or the preparation arcs that tie into it, Otto is dying and he regroups the Sin Six for Something Big. Mysti and Cham have a frikin Blast the whole time. How does that saying go about finishing each other’s sentences.. :3 

4)  Fantastic Voyage: One of the EoE prequels, Beck n Cham are on their own on an island, tryin to distract the fantastic four and do somethin reality-shattering for Ock while pretending the entire squad is there. Mmmm look at them compliments, sure, Mysterio praises Everyone if he’s impressed but damn Quentin that’s not how you help someone up, what even are you doing? :’D and Dmitri’s “MY HEART BLEEDS FOR YOU, BECK” both as sassing him or the lil chance it’s genuine is Excellent

5)  EoE: ok i’ll admit it, this one is open to interpretations BUT they have nicknames for each other! And their own private octobot they share! And Beck wants to know what Cham is thinking!! (and im reaching i know let the girl dream)

6) More of the Ends of Earth shenanigans, Chameleon disguised as Doc Ock versus Spidey+Black Widow+Silver Sable in order to help Beck keep having fun up the illusion going.  “No I’m not being a baby” fdjkagj love their bickering but please note that Beck DID make the suit padded and sturdy enough to withstand a bomb near head.

7) Gauntlet: Prequel for the Grim hunt, Cham goes to hire Beck with a Personal joke HE THOUGHT BECK WOULD LIKE! for comparison, this is how he recruited Electro lmao:

8) EoE, Spidey+Sable+Widow got stuck on Mysterio’s set and Beck n Cham are watching and roasting them.( It’s slightly before Cham attacks spidey disguised as doc ock.) Anyway FRIENDS!!! Talkin about their shared interests of acting and being bastards!! Nicknames! Mysti coming up with an idea and Cham immediately following through! Skill praising sorta! Them makin fun of Otto! This page has it all. 

9) Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil: This whole issue is a gift but Mysti asking Cham to borrow his car is the cherry on top. 

Bonus Bonus for gettin all the way here: According to wiki, this guy is a fusion of Mysterio and Chameleon, idk how they got that information since Mysti’s helmet can as well be opaque like this even without Cham’s influence BUT who am i to look into the gift horse’s mouth right